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U C 53D Congress, 1 SENATE. f Mis. Doc. 

2d Session. j \ Xo. 17 



178 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 

OF 

Randall Lee Gibson, 

(A SENATOR FROM LOUISIANA.' 
UELIVEKI-.P IN I UK 

SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

March i, 1S93, a.\i> Ai'kii. 21, 1894. 



PUBLISHED HV ORDER OK CONGRESS. 



WA.SHINUTON: 

GOVF.RNMF..\T I'KI.NTING OFFICE. 

IS94. 



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■(}■ 



ffeso/rfrf hy the Senate (the Rouse of Representatives concurrinfl). That there 
be priuted of the eulogies delivered in Congress upon the Hon. Randall 
Lee Gibson, late a Senator fiom the State of Louisiana, 8,000 copies, of 
which 2.000 copies shall be delivered to the Senators and Kepreseatatives 
oftliat State; and of the remaining number 2,000 copies shall be for the 
use of the Senate and 4,000 copies for the use of the House; and of the 
quota of the .Senators and Representatives from the State of Louisiana tin' 
Publii- Printer sliall set a.side .50 copies, ■which he shall have bound iu full 
morocco witli gilt edges, the same to be delivered, when completed, to the 
family of the deceased; and the .Secretary of the Treasury is hereby directed 
to have engraved and i>riiited, at as early a date as practicable, the por- 
trait of the deceased to accompany said enlogies. 

Passed the Senate Hay .8.1891. 

Passed the House of Kepre.sentatives May 'J, 1894. 



CONTENTS. 



Aniiniinceuients of the iliMth of Senator (iibsnu: "^^' 

In the Senate - 

t> 

In the House of Rejiresentatives g 

PRoCF.EOINliS IX THE SENATE. 

Address of Mr. White, of Louisiana j.> 

Mr. Wolcott, of C olorado o., 

Mr. (Tiirdon, of Georgia o- 

O " ,^;y 

.Mr. Voorhees, of Indiana 

-Mr. Sherman, of Ohio j, 

Mr. Mills, of 'Texas ^^ 

.Mr. .MePherson, of New Jersey .-.> 

Jlr. Manderson, of Xebraska -(• 

Mr. Cattery, of l.ouiKiana . ,.a 

PR(.UEEI>I.S-(i,S IN THE HolSE OF RePKE.SE.NTATI VE.S. 

Address of .Mr. Meyer, of Louisiana 

87 



68 

Mr. Bl.ind, of Missouri 

-Mr. Henderson, of Illinois 



88 

.Mr. Boatner, of Louisiana o, 

.Mr. Wheeler, of Alabama <45 

Mr. Breckinridge, of Arkansas j,).y 

.Mr. Blair, of Xew Hampshire ],,- 

Mr. Hooker, of Mississippi j,,^ 

3 



ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DEATH OF SENATOR GIBSON. 



IN THE SENATE. 

Monday, December 19, 1S'J2. 

Rev. J. G. Butler, D. 1)., the Chaplain of tlie Senate, ofteied 
the lollowiug prayer: 

Lord God Almighty, Thou art the dwelling place of Thy 
people ill all generations. From everlasting to everlasting 
Thou art God. 

Look ill mercy upon us as we again stand in the .shadow of 
death throwu over this Chamber. We bless Thee for the pure, 
gentle, faithful life of Thy servant, our departed brother. Sus- 
tain and comfort all who are berelt, and so fill with Thy Spirit 
our hearts that day by day we may walk obediently, and 
humbly, and prayerfully, and trustingly before God, charita- 
bly, and kindly, and faithfully toward each other, meeting 
every day's responsibility in Thy fear and in view of the 
account we shall render to Thee. 

Hallow to us, we pray Thee, the rest and labor of the holy 
Sabbath day. Purify our hearts by the indwelling of Thy 
Spirit. Grant victory in every time of temptation, and help, 
that the truth of God may reign in us and rule over us, guid- 
ing our steps in the paths of righteousness and of peace. 

Regard in great mercy Thy servant toward whose sick bed 
so many eyes and hearts arc now turned, ^ye thank Thee for 
his long and useful life. If it ])lease Thee, spare his life, re- 



6 Annoiiucemeiils of the death of Senator Gibson. 

store and strengthen, above all sustain by the power of a living 
faith in this hour of trial, and give peace to him and to his 
who watch so tenderly in this time of darkuess. 

Guide us by Thy counsel. Teach us heavenly wisdom. O 
God, pity us amid life's infirmities and temptatious and ludp 
us to meet daily responsibilities in the I'ear and strength of 
God laithfully, as we shall wish to have done when we come 
to the eud of our earthly pilgrimage. 

We ask these mercies, with forgiveness, and grace, and help, 
in Jesus' name. Amen. 

The Journal of the proceedings <»f Thursday last was read 
and a[)])roved. 

DEATH OF SENATOR GIBSON, OF LOUISIANA. 

Mr. Gorman. Mr. President, at the request of the Senator 
from Louisiana [Mr. White], who is engaged in rendering 
affectionate services to his late colleague, it is made my pain- 
ful duty to announce to the Senate the death of Hon. Randall 
Lee Gibson, the senior Senator from the State of Louisiana. 
After a lingering illness he expired peacefully at Hot Springs, 
in Arkansas, on Thursday last. 

I can not, sir, make this sad announcement without express- 
ing something of the sorrow which this intelligence has brought 
to the Senate. Senator Gibson held a very high i)lace in the 
esteem and affections of his associates on this tloor. 

His great i>ersonal worth and his eminent public services 
had made their impressions on our liearts and judgments. We 
feel and deplore the unsi)eakable loss which the Senate, his 
State, and the country bear in his death. 

His inestimable value as a Senator and as a man is well 
known to all of us. His death is a profound affliction to us 
and a serious bereavement to his j)eople and the country. 



Announcements of the death of Senator Gibson. 7 

He was a great aud .aood num. His mental faculties and his 
moral qualities were of a very high order. It is not too much 
to say that his love for Louisiana had no limit, and that Ins 
large heart embraced in its patriotism the whole Uuion. 

He has left his couutrymeii the example of a useful, houor 
able, and patriotic life, and he has left to us, his survivors 
here, the memory of a friend.ship unalloyed by regret. 

Mr. President, in behalf of the absent Senator from Louisi- 
ana [Mr. White], I submit the resolutions which I send to the 
desk, and ask their adoption. 

The Vice-President. The resolutions will be read. 

The Chief Clerk read the resolutions, as follows : 

Beaolved, That the Seuate has heard with jirolouud sorrow the announce- 
ment of the death of the Hon. R.andall Lee Gibson, late a Senator from 
the State of Louisiana. 

Hesolreil, That a committee of live Senators be appointed by the Presid- 
ing Officer, to join such committee as may he appointed by the House of 
Representatives, to attend the funeral at Lexington, Ky., and that the 
necessary expenses attending the execution of this order be paid out of 
the contingent fund of the Senate. 

Hesolved, That the Secretary communicate these rp.solutions to the House 
of Representatives. 

The resolutions were agreed to unanimously. 

The Vice-President. The Chair appoints as the commit- 
tee to represent the Senate, provided for in the second resolu- 
tion, the Senator from Louisiana, Mr. White; the Senator 
from South Carolina. Mr. Butler; the Senator from Georgia, 
Mr. Gordon; the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Petti- 
grew, and the Senator from Idaho, Mr. Shol'p. 

Mr. Gorman. Mr. President, I move, as a further mark of 
respect to the memory of the deceased, that the Senate do now 
adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to, and (at 12 o'clock and 15 min- 
utes p. ni.) the Senate adjourned until to-morrow, Tuesday, 
December 20. IS'Jli, at lii o'clock in. 



8 AiDioiDicoiu Ills of the death of Senator Gibson. 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



Saturday. December 17, 1S92. 

Mr. Meyer. Mr. Speaker, siuce our last meeting tlie Cou- 
gress of the United States aiul our wliole country have suf- 
fered au irreparable loss, and it becomes my painful duty to 
announce to this House the death of Hon. Randall Lee 
Gibson, a Senator from Louisiana, which occurred on Thurs- 
day last at Hot Springs, Ark., after a i)rolonged illness. His 
remains will be interred at Lexington, Ky., where he was 
born, and where his earlier years were passed in the midst of 
a numerous and affectionate kindred. 

For many years a conspicuous member of this body, there 
are many of his former colleagues who can appreciate the 
great grief this loss brings to his family and the personal 
bereavement it causes to his friends. 

As a soldier, a. scholar, and a statesman — in the held, on 
the rostrum, and iu the council chamber — the best energies of 
his life were consecrated to his State and to his country. He 
loved her devotedly, strove to serve her unselfishly, and, be- 
yond interests of family, or friends, or party, made her welfare 
the chief object of his desires. 

Occupying, as I do, the seat once so illustriously held by 
him, I share in the pride of my State for having had as a Rep- 
resentative in this hon(nabli' House and in the Senate of the 
United States one so high-toned, so spotless as Randall 
Lee Gibson, and the luster which his civic virtues reflected 
(»n his people and the honor which his public career conferred 
upon his whole country but exceeded his earlier services as a 
soldier, battling for what he believed to be the right. 

At the i)ropcr time, .Mr. Speaker, 1! shall ask this House to 
set apart a day, as is its custom, to be devoted to the jiortrayal 



Announcements of the death of Senator Gibson. 9 

of his lofty character, and when this Chamber will resound 
with elociuent tributes to the admirable traits and eminent 
l>iiblic services of the deceased it will make those who listen the 
better, it will afford thorn a higher conception of American 
manhood and American statesmanship, and it will cause them 
to rejoice that attributes so noble, (pialities so pure and patri- 
otic, should have been so continuously recognized by his fel- 
low-citizens. I send to the Clerk's desk resolutions for which 
I ask immediate adoption. 
The Clerk read as follows: 

Resolved. That this Houst- has learutid with profouml sorrow of tlie death 
of Hon. Randall Lee Gibson, a .Senator of the United States from the 
State of Louisiana. 

liesolved, That the Speaker of the House appoint a lommittee of eiglit 
memliers, to act in conjunction witli such committee as may be appointed 
by the Senate, to attend the Imrial. 

Resolved, That, as a further triliuti' and niarlc of respect to the memory 
of the deceased, this House do now adjourn. 

The question being taken, tlie resolutions were unanimously 
adopted. 

The Speaker annonncetl the appointment of Mr. Blaxch- 
ARD, Mr. Robertson of Louisiana, Mr. Price, Mr. Breckin- 
ridge of Kentucky, ^Ir. Elliott, Mr. Caruth, Mr. Hen- 
derson of Illinois, and Mr. Dalzell as the committee on the 
part of the House under the resolutions just adopted; and, in 
accordance with the concluding resolution, the House (at 4 
o'clock and 1.5 miiuites) adjourned. 



EULOGIES IN THE SENATE. 



Wednesday, March l, 1S!)3. 
Mr. White. Mr. President. I submit the resolutions which 
I send to the desk, and ask that they he read. 
The President pro temporv. Tlie resolutions will he read. 
The Secretary read the resolatious, as foUow.s: 

Resolved. That the Sen,ate has heanl with prdfouiid sorrow of the death 
of Hon. Randall Lee Gibsox, late a .Seuator from the .State of Louisiana, 
and that it extends to his afflicted family its sincere sympathy iu their 
bereavement. 

Resolved further , That as au additional mark of respect to the memory 
of Seuator Gibson' the legislative business of the Senate he now suspended 
in order that his associates in this body may pay a tribute to his memory. 

Resolved, That the Secret.iry transmit to the family of the deceased 
certified copies of these resolutions, with statement of the action of the 
Senate thereon. 

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate be directed to communicate 
these re.solutions to the House of Kepre.sentatives. 

Resolved, That as a further testimonial to the memory of the decease<i 
the Senate do now adjouru. 

11 



12 Address of Mr, White^ 0/ Louisiana^ on the 



Address of Mr. White, of Louisiana. 

Mr. President : In the noble and benutifiil eulogy delivered 
l).y the Senator froui Maine [Mr. Frye] the other day 011 the 
late Senator Kenna, he said that he thought the custom which 
has grown u]) in this body, when the hand of death strikes 
down one engaged among us in the performance of public 
service, of putting aside a day in order to make up the record 
(jf the services of the deceased and to make a statement of the 
estimate formed of him by his colleagues, had it in something 
cold and something perfunctory. It would be better, he 
thought, that the warm expressions from the heart should 
respond at once to the void which death created. 

The view, sir, struck me as having in it its modicum of truth, 
but only, 1 think, a half truth. Wherever a custom has taken 
being in a body like this and has endured for a long time, it 
nuist have its foundation in some deep-seated reason, although 
such reason may not upon the surface of things be apparent. 
1 presume, sir, that the custom by which an interval of time is 
allowed to elapse befoi'c ceremonies like these we commemo 
rate today are had results from the fact that it was the desire 
and object to prevent the public record which was to be made 
from being formed under the dread shadow of immediate death, 
and therefore to enable a wiser, juster, and more impartial 
estimate to l)e put upcni the record than otherwise would 
obtain. 

Sir, if this be the origin of the rule, the task imposed upon 
me to-day is indeed a difficult one. As the colleague and lov- 
ing friend of the deceased Senator, how, sir, can 1 lift my voice 
up to say anything that contains in it in any way a judgment 
or an opinion, free from bias and uncontrolled by those tender 



Life and Cluiraclcr of Randall Lcc Gibson. 13 

and enduring associations wiiicli created and uiaiiitained that 
lasting link of personal friendship between us? 

Looking back to my boyhood, I can recall him to my mind. 
Looking back to my early manhood, 1 hud a friendship 
formed, growing with my growth, spreading with my years, 
and strengthening as every day went by in the depth of the 
attachment formed for him and the estimate I entertained for 
the high and noble attributes of his nature. Despite these 
facts, sir, which may obscure my judgment and crowd the 
gateways of my mind so full of tender recollections, I shall 
endeavor to briefly and impartially state his career, the moral 
which it illustrates, and the example which it sets. 

Sii', Senator Gibson suffered no adverse fortune in his early 
youth. His paternal grandfather came of Revolutionary stock. 
Moving from Virginia to South Carolina and then from Sonth 
Carolina to Mississippi, he became there allied by marriage 
and association with many of the noblest names in that great 
Commonwealth. His father married early in life in Lexington, 
Ky., a Miss Louisiana Hart. She came from one of the most 
distinguished t\xmilies of the many noble ones which have illns- 
trated and adorned the history of that marvelous State — the 
Shelbys, the Marshalls, the Prestons, the Breckinridges, and 
others. The name of Louisiana was given her from the fact that 
a great kinsman at just about the time of her birth had drafted 
and introdnced in this body the resolution which consummated 
the purpose of Thomas Jefferson in acquiring the vast territory 
of Louisiana. It seems, sir, as an inspiration of the providence 
of God that she upon whom was thus bestowed the name of the 
new territory was to become the mother of a son who was to 
shed luster upon the State of Louisiana, was to lead her gallant 
and heroic sons in battle, was to render her and her people sei'v- 
ices in these Halls priceless beyond measure, and in the per- 
formance of other public duties elsewhere. 



14 ^'Iddrcss ofMr. Jl'/ii/c. of [.oiiisiaiia^ on the 

No (Icf'ec't of early eilucation was his. Ileyiew upiu Lexiiig- 
tiiu siirrounrlcd by the letined and cultivated, atmosphere whieh 
there prevailed — an atniospliere the intensity of which may be 
understood when it is considtired that upon it was shed the luster 
of the life and fame of the great commoner, Henry Clay. Early 
in his youth tljat masterful jxjwcr which in after life was to 
dominate and direct men demonstrated itself among his youth- 
ful associates. He became the captain of a company called the 
Ashland Guards, which was intended to serve as the escort of 
Mr. Clay. 

Shortly after his marriage the father of Senator Gibson 
aiMpiired pnjperty in Louisiana and established a sngar estate 
in Terre Bonne Parish. This became his home, and thus was 
begun the association of Senator Gibson with tiie i)eo|)ie of 
that State whom he so much loved and served so well. 

Taking his primary education in Teire Bonne and in Lexing- 
ton, his collegiate education was obtained at Vale College. Tha t 
great institution of learning which has formed so many splendid 
men left an impress upon his mini! an<l his character which 
followed him to the end of his career. 

At college the same qualities which in later manhood shoue 
out in his character with a brightness tlie full extent of which 
was known to few men until they came in intimate contact 
with him made him, as a member of the graduating class — 
Containing some of the brightest names in the record of our 
common country, Andrew White and others — the class orator 
of that class. 

After his graduation he traveled a few years in Europe. 
Returning to Louisianai, he studied law and took the diploma 
of the Law LTnivcrsity of Louisiana. But, sir, the temper of 
his mind was not cast in that mold wliich likes the dry and 
arduous details necessarily attending the neophyte in the legal 
profession. That eia in the Soutii was tiie period of tlores- 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 15 

cence, of the semipatriarcbal life wliit-li charmed and fasciuated 
everybody. Bom of a race of country gentlemen, passsiiig his 
boyhood either upon the rolling hills and lovely dales of the 
fair State of Kentucky, or in the green fields and waving for- 
ests of Louisiana, it was natural that the mind of young Gib- 
son should have turned to country ])ursuits. Under these in- 
fluences he established himself on a sugar plantation with 
the idea of becoming a planter. I take it, sir, that the early 
impression made upon his mind by liis youthful surroundings 
had not been eflin-ed when he made this choice of a career. 
The consideration of public things, the discussion of public 
questions, was one of the necessary incidents in the semipa- 
triarchal life of the planter of the Southern country. Doubt- 
less the whisperings of public duty and the beckoning ambi- 
tion of public service rose in the mind and heart of young 
Gibson when he determined to give himself up to a country 
life. How could it have been otherwise? The concentrated 
political atmosphere which surrounded Lexington, Ky., when 
the overshadowing luster of the genius of Ulay was with it must 
necessarily have remained witli him. It was stamped upon 
his mind at a time when his impressions were plastic. Early 
in his career he began to give evidence of the truth of this 
statement Ijy taking an interest in public atiairs and by direct- 
ing his steps along tlie i)ath which led to the performance of 
public duty. 

A great and noble career doubtless, sir, would have at once 
awaited him in the State of his adoption had not the cloud of 
war arisen to mar and dispel it. The storm which took its 
origin at the very^ formation of our (Tovernment was gathering 
over the land, and nn human wisdom and no human foresight 
could prevent the awful tempest of blood, ruin, and misery 
which was to follow. When the first mutterings of that storm 
began to be heard, young Gibson, who had iml)ibed a national 



16 Address o/Mv. U'/ii/i\ of Louisiana, on tltc 

view of uur iustitutious iind whose mind \v;i,s formed under tlie 
pressure of the great doctrines taught by the Whig party, of 
which Mr. Clay was the masterful exponent, at once Took a 
stand against the fatal act of isolated secession. 

But, sir, no force of human strength, or human character, or 
human intellect could stem the resistless current which was 
setting then as the result of forces lojig since created. The 
act was consunniiated. Tlie reverberation of the first gun, 
echoing from Sumter, called a million men to arms. Reason 
was lost, and passion alone had sway. Feeling that, under his 
conception of duty, he owed liis allegiance to tlie people of the 
State of his adoption, he rai ed a company in the parish in 
which he lived and tendered it for defense. 

He soon passed from the captaincy of a cimipany to the colo- 
nelcy of a regiment. Untrained in military affairs, cast in a 
mold of mind as foreign to the i)erformance of military duty as 
any man I ever knew, the great qualities which (xod had given 
him shown out in his ndlitarv career as they shown everywhere 
else, and he passed from the coiniiiaiid of a I'egimeiit to the 
command of a brigade. 

ITis regiment was assigned to duty in tlie Western army and 
met the first shock of battle at Shiloh. There, sir, his regi- 
ment, the Thirteenth Louisiana, shed a beautiful luster of 
courage and heroism upon the name of my State, certainly 
never surpassed. lint I need not g(( into detail. In all the 
dread conflicts in wliich tlie Western army was engageil, in 
the campaign in Kentucky which led to the bloody tight at 
Perryville, in the campaign which caused the carnage of Mur- 
freesboro, in that deathto-death battle which poured out such 
rivers of blood upon the held of Chickamauga, in the memora- 
ble retreat of Johnston, in the struggle around Atlanta — every- 
where, at the head of Ills regiment or biig;ide, the civilian 
soldier stood in the forefront of battle and <lid liis dutv wirh a 



Life and Character of Ra]tdaU Lee Gibson. 17 

courage, a fidelity, a /.eal, and a lieioism wiiicli no language ol' 
uiiue cau fittingly portray. 

I thougbt, sir, as I looked the other day over tlie incidents 
of Lis military career, it would be well, not only for bis own 
sake, but for the sake of those noble and valiant men whom 
he led, that 1 should put upon the record some of the estimates 
entertained of him and them by the clneftains under whom he 
served. 

General Dan. Adams, in bis official rei)ort of Perryville, 
recommended Gibson foi- promotion "for skill and gallantry 
on the field of battle." 

General Breckinridge, in his report of Murfreesboro, sai<l : 
"General Gibson discharged his duty with marked courage 
and skill." 

General Clayton, in his report of the struggle at Atlanta, 
says: 

Brigadier-Geueriil Gibson, seizing the colors of one of his regiments, 
dashed to the front and to the very works of the enemy. This gallant 
brigade lost one-half of its members. My own eyes bore witness to its 
splendid conduct from the beginning to the close. It captured the guns 
of the enemy and captured their main works until overwhelming and 
increasing numbers forced their abandonment. It was handled with 
skill and fought with the heroism of desperation. 

General Stephen D. Lee says of Gibson's brigade: 
I saw them around Atlanta and in Hood's Nashville campaign. 1 desig- 
nated (tIbson's brigade to cross the Tennessee Kiver in open boats in the 
presence of the enemy, near Florence, Ala., and a more gallant crossing 
of any river was not made during the war. At Nashville, wlu'U Hoo<l was 
defeated by Thomas, Gibson's brigade was conspicuously posted on the 
left of the pike near Overton Hill, and I witnessed their driving back, 
with the restof Clayton's <livision. two formidable assaults of the enemy. 
I I'ecoUcct. uear dark, riding u]i to the brigade, near a battery, and try- 
ing to seize a stand of colors and lead the brigade against the (■nemy. 
The color-bearer refu.sed to give up his colors and was sustained by his 
regiment. I found it was the color-bearer of the Thirtciutli Louisiana. 

'S. Mis. 178 2 



18 Address of Mr. II 7///e, of Louisiana., on the 

It was Cibson's Louisiana brigade. Ginsox soon appean^d at my side, 
and ill admiration of such ('onduct I exclaimed : "Gibson, these are tlie 
best men I ever saw; you tal<e tliem and check the enemy." GiiisoN did 
take thoiu and did clieek the enemy. 

Hood, ill lii.s Advance and Retreat, .^peaking of the retreat 
from the fatal lield of Franklin, says: 

General Gibson, who i-vinced cdiisjiii'iioiis gallantry and ;iliility in the 
handling of his troops, succeeded, in concert with Clayton, in checking 
and staying the most dangerous shock, which always follows immediately 
after a rout, Gibson's brigade and McKinzie's battery of Fenner's bat- 
talion acting as rear guard of the rear guard. 

Greneral Breckinridge, .•^peakiii"' of General GinsON at Cliick- 
amauga, said that lie led his forces with a heroism and intel- 
ligence which could not be too highly ]iraised. 

The ability which Gibson displayed as a military comma nder 
led to his assignment to a separate command as a division 
commander in the defense of Spanish Fort at Mobile Harbor, 
one of the last and most fateful struggles of the civil war. 
The estimate made of him then in this line of duty is but a 
repetition of the opinions which I liave read of the great cap- 
tains under whom he previously served. 

General Andrews, who fought upon the other side, in his 
history of the camiiaign of ^fobile, says: 

General Gibson was com]>etent and active and inspired his iroops with 
enthusiasm. 

General Taylor asserts in his Construction and Ivcconstruc- 
tion that "the defense of Spanisli Fort by General Gibson 
was one of the best achievements of tlie war." 

Such, sir, was his military career. Ah, who that recalls him 
as he lived in these Halls, his urbanity, his mildness, liis gen 
tleuess and consideration for others, would have thought of 
him as a leader in war. I say. sir. it is a record of wliicli any 
American may be jiroiid. T say. sir. it is a record wliicli ought 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 10 

to make every American doubly proud, not only from the fact 
that it exists, but from the further fact that with only those 
few years lying between us and tliat awful struggle 1 am able 
to stand in my place in tlie Senate of the United States and 
point to this record made in a civil strife as the common herit- 
age of a united country, as an indication of the valor and 
tidelity to duty of a good and noble American. 

Sir. we may have mir judgments as to the wisdom of men in 
that great struggle. Opinions may, as they doubtless do, 
differ as to the cause of its origiTi and as to the motives which 
impelled those who brouglit it about. I am fain, liowever, to 
believe, as the assuaging hand of time comes to blot out these 
conditions, and as the necessities weld us into the great and 
harmonious people which we now are, and which I hope, and 
we all hope, shall continue to be in a greater and greater 
degree as the years go on, 1 am sure the heart of the Amciican 
people is capable of recognizing the courage and heroism of 
the American citizen displayed in the discharge of a sacred 
duty as he understood his duty at the time. 

Returning to his home when the war was ended, the dream 
of a pastoral life which had insjiired the heart of the young 
man was necessarily blighted and gone. Misery and desola- 
tion and ruin of war had laid waste the fair fields ujiou which 
he had expected to spend a |>art of the energies of his life. In 
this condition he did as so nniny others did. He turned his 
attention to that profession which he had studied rather as an 
ornament than as a practical pursuit in life. He took up the 
practice of law in the city of New Orleans. 

I recollect it well, sir, for about that time, or a year or so 
thereafter, 1 became myself a law student. The bar to which 
be came was crowded with men of bright and dominant intel- 
lects and of large experience. The struggle for profe-ssional 
advancement was great. He soon began to make himself felt, 



20 Address of Mr. ]\'liiU\ of Louisiana^ on the 

and business came to liiin. The singular fascination wliic'li lie 
exercised over men and his great power to deal with them was 
sensibly observed by all who came in contact with him. 
W'liile these attributes did not make him a teclmical lawyer in 
the narrow sense of that term, his Ineadtii of view and scoj)e 
of judgment soon made his opponents at the bar conscious of 
the fact that when GiiJsox was in a case the other side had to^ 
be careful in its preparation. 

Degree by degree the sphere of his professional usefulness 
extended. The (pialities which liad nuide liim a leader in war 
would doubtless also ultinuitely hiive made liim a leailer in tlie 
struggle for dominancy in the civil profession had not a more 
alluring and enchanting tield of i»ul)li<' service drawn him away 
from legal to political i)ursuits. He was electeil to the Forty- 
third Congress, but w;is deni(>d a sent. He was elected again 
to the Forty-fourth, Forty-tifth, Forty-sixth, and Forty-seventh, 
and while serving in the Forty sixth, and having yet a term to 
serve in the Forty- seventh, he was elected to the Senate in 
1888, and was reelected for another term. 

I shall not, sir, in the brief remarks which I now propose to 
make, attempt to analyze his career, either in the other House 
of Congr(!ss or in this body. I see sitting around me those 
who have grown gray in the public service, who served with 
him years ago in the other House, nnd who were with him 
here during all his Senatorial career. They can, iiitinitely bet 
ter than I, estimate his jiower and the steady and resolute 
advance which he made in the atiipiisition of influence so as to 
enable him to ])arti<ni)ate in the direction and shai)ing of legis- 
lation. All I shiill briefly do, sir, is to attem|)t to point out 
what I coiHseive to \i<' the smHcuI features in liis ]iublic service 
and in tlie character of his work as illustrative of his career 
here. 

The first thought that strikes me is the broad and c(,mpre- 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 21 

beiisive, the uatioual view which his opinions soon assumed. 
Having t-ome from the field of war, and having witnessed the 
awful convulsions to which the country had been subjected, 
his mind felt the necessity in the termination of the great 
issues which had evoked the war for a broader and safer 
national life. His mind was responsive to the whole country in 
every great national question which i)resented itself. While 
be set bis heart upon serving his people locally, he sought at 
the same time to serve, with all his might and main, the 
nation as a whole of which the people whom he represented 
were but a component part. 

Let me illustrate it, sir, by the events of 1877. I recollect 
when that crisis came, whidi threatened so much of harm to 
this nation, the bold and manlj' part he took in the events 
which led to its assuagement. During the canvass which had 
preceded the election of 1877 Senator Gibson had been a warm 
supporter and friend and associate of Mr. Tilden. He was 
close to Tildeu. When, however, the great controverted ques- 
tion arose as to the result of the election, and the mutterings 
of anarchy were heard all over the land, he did not hesitate 
for one moment, although it brought some odium on him at 
home and abuse in many other directions. 

In the very inception of that unpleasant episode in our polit- 
ical life he lifted his voice and bent his energies to support the 
creation of the machinery which bridged this country over that 
controversy and led the ship of state into the tran(iuil waters 
of constitutional government, preserved without anarchy and 
without turmoil. 

On all the other great national questions the trend of his 
character was in the same direction. 1 rei-ollect during the 
days of the rag-money craze, when the minds of many were 
led astray by the delusive pressure for a debased currency, he 
stood firm for honest and hard money. There was a strong 



22 Address of Mr. U7ii/e, of Louisiana, on llie 

opinion at home in favor of the greenback heresy. Indeed, an 
ahnost nnanimous resolution passed through the lower house of 
the legislature of the State of Louisiana instructing him to 
vote for the rag money. Despite these facts, unostentatiously 
but firmly he cast his votes to preserve thepiirity and value of 
the money of the country. There are those on this floor wlio 
served with him during nearly the whole of his career who 
have said to me since his death that their estmate of him was 
of the highest character, because of the fact that his views and 
influence had always been exerted for that which, in his judg- 
ment, he deemed to be best for the good of the whole country 
and for the preservation (jf the integrity of its institutions. 

Ah, sir, if this was the relation which he bore to this Govern- 
ment in these Halls from a national point of view, how much 
more valuable and priceless were the services which he rendered 
the people he represented, looked at from the point of view of 
their local and peculiar interest. When he came to Congress 
the people of Louisiana were in the slough of despair and misery ; 
their liberties gone, the shackles of a debased government upon 
them. That government, whilst depriving them of their liber- 
ties, also liad despoiled and was despoiling them of the remnant 
of property which war had left; the lamp of hope had burned 
out. The depression of the war had been followed by the 
despair caused by a debased and corrupt government. 

Mr. Gibson, as a Representative from Louisiana, set himself, 
along with his colleagues, to the task of relieving tliis situa- 
tion. Who better was able to do it than himself? The charm 
of his personality, the breadth of his cultivation, the extent of 
his acquaintance, the singular fascination which he exercised 
over men caused him to be, as it were, a minister between the 
peo])le of the South and the people of the IS'orth. The difficulty 
was to obtain a hearing. How well and wisely he did his duty 
could be said now bv the voices of those on this floor wilh more 



Life and Character of Randall Lcc Gibson. 23 

kuo\vk'd};e, with more power, and of course witliiuore cloqiieucc 
than mine could say. 

When, in 1877, tbrougli tlie wise and Just action of that 
benevolent man who has })assed away to his reward during 
the past winter — I speak of President Hayes — when, under his 
■wise and great actiou, the arm of the military power was lifted 
from the Southern people, who is it tliat is familiar with all the 
events which led up to that conclusion who can say that it was 
not the pervading, the strong, the subtle influence of Giijson 
which gradually opened the minds of President Hayes and his 
advisers to a proper conception of the situation of the South. 
And this led to the relief of the burdens which were pressing 
to destruction people not only in Louisiana but of the entire 
South. Sir, from the lifting of those burdens every good gift 
which tlie people of Louisiana liave since enjoyed has in a 
measure come. 

Devoting himself thus to the restoration of local self-govern- 
ment, Senator Gibson kept a watchful eye to the material 
interests of the people he represented. When he came to Con- 
gress, the mouth of tliat great I'iver, the mighty artery which 
ti'.kes the commerce from all the West and floats it to the ocean, 
had an embargo on it as absolute and complete as could be. 
For years efforts had been made to remove it. Gibson con- 
ducted himself with consummate skill to the lurtherauce of 
this legislation. 

"Whilst military engineers and others were resisting the proj- 
ect of Eads, Gibson began at once with a tact and clearness 
and adroitness to demonstrate the mightiness of the project 
which Eads entertained and the necessity for legislation to 
assist him. l>y his efforts, not of course alone by his ett'orts, 
but largely by their influence, the legislation which enabled 
Captain Eads to carry out his plans became law. And ever 
since the commerce of the world, lh)ating through the disen- 



24 .Iddrcss ofMr. II 'liiU\ of Louisiana^ on tlic 

goif^ed mouth of tlnit iiiiglity river, has blessed the i)eoi)le of 
the whole valley and is blessing them today. I am sure I ilo 
uot overestimate the value of (Jibson's services in this 
particular. 

I was looking some days ago at a Life of Captain Eads, one 
of the greatest geniuses, 1 think, of modern American life, 
reared himself in liumbh' circumstances, without great tr;iin- 
ing, but endowed by the providence of God with a mind tlie 
elasticity and clearness of which I have never known sur- 
passed. When years were gathering on him and he was 
retiring somewhat from the work of active life, Senator Gibson 
wrote him a letter, or addressed to some friend a letter, .sug- 
gesting that a commemorative statue should be erected to 
Captain Eads for the work which he had done for the valley of 
the Mississippi. What was Capain Eads's reply? I have it, 
sir, in a letter written by liim to Senator Gibson. It shows 
how great minds lift themselves up above the mist and petti- 
ness of things low into the region of things supernal. 

Captain Bads said: 

With respect to the memorial to which you refer as likely to be erected 
to me by the people of the valley, I will only say that it will not l)e fitting 
or complete unless it shall have a twin monument to yourself by its side. 
I know pretty well how to value my merits, an<l I know that they would 
have accomplished nothing without such statesmanship as you have dis- 
played. I have studied very faithfully the laws which control the condi- 
tions of inanimate matter. You thoroughly understand the more subtle 
influences that eontrol the actions of men. You are so ready to lose sight 
of yourself and make others believe that they are the originators of your 
plans that you will rarely fail to sway senates ami delibiTative bodies to 
carry out and support your measures. In my o])iuiou \\^^ uiemorial to rom 
memorate the labors in behalf of the improvement of the Mississippi River 
will be complete unless you are the most prominent ligure comprising it. 

When the work of the jetties was completed, the bestowing 
of sucli an inestimable blessing upon the commerce of the val- 
ley, there was another situation imperatively calling for 



Life and Cliaractcr of Randall Lee Gibson. 25 

assuagement ami iinpidveinent. The situation was tlie condi- 
tion of the levees on the Mississippi River. The principle 
which Eads had applied to the mouth of the ri\'er demon 
strated the possibility of applying- it not only for that i)urpose, 
but also to preventing the awful devastation which the annual 
tloods of that river carried to the fair fields along its banks. 

Through several sessi(ms, changing the form, but always 
pressing with unerring certainty to the great end which was 
sought to be accomplished, the mind of Senator Gibson and 
the minds of his colleagues succeeded in convincing the people 
of tlie United States that there was a necessary intercoumiuni 
cation or interdependence, as is the undoubted fact, between 
the channel made easy and navigable and the protection of 
the banks themselves. The result of that great work and the 
consequences which have come from it, the legislation which 
has followed in may Congresses, is today, sir, that along the 
banks of that mighty river there are smiling fields and liappy 
homes where erstwhile misery, desolation, and ruin i^revailed, 
because sheltered and protected by the levee work which Gib- 
son and his colleagues succeeded in having accomplished. 

But, in my oi)iuion, the greatest blessing of his life remained 
to be conferred upon the people whom he represented. A 
venerable gentleman, living in retirement in Princeton, N. J., 
and who had accumulated the foundations of his fortune in 
Louisiana, formed the plan of giving a sum, not very large, 
for the education of the young men of the State of Louisiana. 
The philanthropist to whom 1 refer was Mr. Paul Tulane. 
This project being in his mind, he looked around for a coun- 
selor and adviser to execute it. The large field which Senator 
Gibson filled in national life, the fact thsit he had come to be 
considered as one of the highest and best exponents of 
Southeru representation, naturally turned Mr. Tulane's eyes 
to him. Gibson was sent for. He listened to the purpose. At 



26 Address of Mr. II 7///r, o/' Lo/e/'s/a>/a, on Uic 

once associating liimsclf with Tulane's thoughts, he conceived 
the idea of opening up to Mr. Tnlane's niiml tiic i)hiii ol' an 
organization of a great university in the State of Louisiana 
which shouhl bestow its blessing not only on the living, but 
upon millions yet unborn. The intlueuce which he exerted 
everywhere and upon every one with whom he came in contact 
soon made itself felt upon Mr. Tulane. 

Calling to his assistance friends in whom lie had confidence 
in New Orleans, the plans were soon formed. The original 
conception of Mr. Tulane deepened and widened until, from 
the elemental thought, a mighty river of benefaction has flowed 
out upon the people of Louisiana. There has been developed, 
sir, a university upon broad and deei) and wide foundations, 
embracing in its scope everytlung necessary for training and 
development of the highest order. 

This work, whilst of course not due to Senator Gibson alone, 
is, in a large measure, as to its scope, the result of his influence 
and his advice. In the last years of his life his mind was con- 
stantly jircoccupied with this university. He looked upon it, 
as it were, as a child of his thought. His mind constantly cast 
itself over the future and formed plans for its development 
and fructification of the great work which he saw was before 
him. Such is the life, sir; such its accomplishments. 

Ah, what a triumph they are for American statesmanship! 
What lessons they teach to the young men who are to come 
on! As I look at the situation of our country to-day, it seems 
to me that the dominant disease afflicting the mind of our 
young men is the restless thirst for wealth, is the belief that 
in the public service there is nothing to be gained — is the 
growing conviction that neither honor nor profit nor useful- 
ness is found in dedicating one's life to public duty. All this 
results necessarily in the |belittliug of public men and the 
luiiiiniizing of the work wlucli they do. 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 27 

If tlie tiuf aim of life be, sir. to lill it up with the greatest 
blessiug to oue's kind, what life coiild more completely auswer 
this diseased condition of thought than the one to which I 
have referred ? What mightier olyect lesson could be given 
to correct this evil state of opinion than the life of this man 
which I have thus stated? In wliat other career could he 
have had such a wide field of usefulness, affording him an 
ampler scope for the accomplishment of good to his kind, than 
that public career which he led ? 

Sir. there is not a steamship beating along the ocean with a 
cargo of Western corn that does not recite the triumph of his 
accomplisbmeuts for the American people. There is not a field 
smiling in that fertile valley or a home blessed bj' happiness 
there which does not say: '-Behold, this is in a large measure 
the result of his handiwork !" The youth educated in the uni 
versify which he helped to found, which he loved so well, have 
already begun to mingle with society and to leaven and 
improve it. They furnish living examples of how he was able 
to do good. The thousands which ai-eto come after, long after 
all who are here to-day shall have sunk into the silence of the 
grave, as they look back and appreciate the benelits which his 
labor bestowed, will associate his name with their great bene- 
factor, Paul Tulane, and rise up and call tbem blessed forever. 

Mr. President, I shall not detain the Senate much longer. 
I shall endeavor simply to state the dominant characteristics 
of his character by which he was enabled to do the good which 
I have thus feebly described. I should say, sir, that the two 
great distinctive characteristics of Senator Gibson, which in 
themselves seem api)arently antagonistic, but which, when 
comprehended with a deepei' vision, blend and melt themselves 
in each other to iiml<e up tln' liarmouious whole winch was 
his, were will and gentleness combined — will to do where he 
saw a work before him to be done: gentleness to draw around 



2<S Address of Mr. W'liilc, of LonisiiDia^ o)i tli(- 

liiui tlic kiiiiliicss ;iii(l alTectidii of those witli whom lie dealt, 
and thus lead tlieiii to aid and cooix'rate with iiiiii in the per- 
formance of the work wldcli lie had midertaken. 

With these (inalities was associated an almost intuitive per- 
ception of the character of men, a sinjiular faculty for ana- 
lyzing their motives, for touchinjf the nniinspriiig' of good in 
them, for making everyone feel that he was a [lart and parcel 
of the great battle which was to be fought, and was to l>ear a 
full share of the rewards which were to come from the victory 
gained. The mightiness of his will ]»ower is demonstrated l)y 
the fact, known only in a nieasnrable way, but kn(jwn thor- 
oughly to those who were intimately accjuainted with him. 

The fact is that the great work of his life was accomplished 
whilst physical pain. i)hysical disorder, and weakness were ever 
knocking at the door of his being and threatening to subnnt 
him to the dread ordeal of death. Sir, he rose above it all. 
In him the power of mind ]tut out its masterful 1iand ui>ou tiie 
resisting matter, and behold the icsult shining forth in the 
accomplishments of his life which I have endeavored to portray 
in the feeble words I have uttered. 

The tenderness of his affections is shown byan incident which 
occnrred in the last days of his life. A IViend proposed to visit 
Europe and asked me for letters of introdnction to the repre- 
sentatives of this Government abroad in some of the European 
cai)itals. He desired that these letters should be not only from 
myself, but from Senator Gin.soN also. {'om]3lying with the 
request, I gave him the letters wiiich he desired me to give, and 
l)reparedthe letters which lie desirecl Senator (! iissoN to give. 
Si'nator (tIHSOn was then at Hot Springs, afHicted with the 
nnilady which caused his death I in(-losed the letters to him, 
stating that I had preiiared them because T jjresumed that it 
would lie too much ti'ouble for him to w rite them, and requested 
him to sign them and return them to me. .\t'ter the laiise of 



Life and Cliaractcr of Randal! f.ec Cibson. 2!) 

some (hiys the letters were returned. He was in liis last ill- 
ness. Tlje signature atfixed to tlieni was hardly discernible. 
One of the letters wliieh I iire])ared was addressed to a distin- 
guished gentleman, a classmate at Yah- of Senator Gihson's. 
Though the mind was weal<, the will was strong and the att'ee- 
tion undiminished. When he reached this lettei' and atfixed 
his trend)liiig- signature to it the pen traced below the faltering 
signature an endearing and tender message of atl'ection to the 
one to whom the letter was addressed. The lapse of years 
and the fast anproaching presence of death itself had not 
been able to obliterate from his mind the tender recollections 
of those college days, when so man>- ties of affection were 
formed. 

The end of life drew near to him. sir. lint death did not 
come to him suddenly. It came by slow ai)pr(jaches. For 
many years before his death he had felt a consciousness 
that at any moment the dread summons might come. I luive 
often heard him express the thought. With this thought domi 
uant in his mind and present to him, looking over the held of 
life, he naturally turned to the end of all things and the jnighty 
shadow of the hereafter which was to cast itself upon him. I 
recollect, sir, during the last session of Congress, going one 
Sunday morning to his library and tiuding him sitting alone — 
for he was largely alone in the last years of his life. The 
inscrutable wisdom of the jjrovidence of God in sending 
him many attlictions had sent him the last and supreme one of 
taking from him, some years before liis death, that gentle being 
who blessed and graced him, the sweetest, the tenderest, and 
the loveliest wife \ ever knew. I found him alone, and on his 
knee was a book. I took iiii the book and said: •• General, wlmt 
are you readiugT' He replied: "It is the Psalms." This led 
us to talk of the hereafter, of the great mystery of human life. 
"Ah," said he. "as lite goes on, and I feel tinit perhaps only a 



v/ 



30 Address of Mr. Jl'/u'tc, o/ Lonisiaim, nii Ihf 

lew mouths or .veins arc Ictt uie, my mind is tnriiiiij;' to tliouylits 
of this nature." 

Again he said: ''I have reached the conehision that uutsi(h' 
of the broad j)riuciples of religion there is no hope for mortals 
here below or hereafter." Thanks be to the mercy of (lod, sir, 
for this consoling reflection, for it leads the mind to see and to 
Iciiow that, as the Angel of Death came to bear him Irom the 
land of Time to the land of Eternity, he passed fortified and 
blessed by the consolation of a faitli in the infinite mercy and 
wisdom of God. 

Sir, it was my privilege, as the chairman of tlie committee 
appointed to i^ay the last respect to his memory, to be present 
at his funeral. As I listened in the church at Lexington to 
the beautiful words of a venerable priest, calling attention to 
che evidences of inunoruality, it filled my lieart with hoi)e and 
with consolation. We carried him from the church on a bleak 
and wintry day to that beautiful cemetery on the outskirts of 
Lexington where rest the ashes of Clay, and where gathered 
unto their fathers are so many noble sjiirits of the many 
noble men of that great and noble Commonwealth, Kentucky. 
Htaniling in the cenietery, with the bleak north wind blowing 
and the leafless branches waving over the new-made grave, 
with a company of cadets fronr the Military University of Ken- 
tucky drawn ui) ui)on a knoll above the grave, I tiionght wiiat 
a happy fate was Senator Gihson's. He was brought back to 
the soil of his nativity, beaten and worn, it may be. by the 
struggle of life, but not defeated, for he came back with tlie 
oblation of a life full of great things done and nobly done, of 
duty well performed. 

Standing, sir, iu silence by the open gra\e. with so many of 
the valiant and warm hearted people of Lexington anumd, 
listening to the grizzled Confederates as they recited tlieir 
prayers and dropped laurels upon his coffin, it seemed to me 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 31 

that, whilst the situation w;is full of grief, it yet was sug- 
gestive of and instinctive with hope of everlasting joy and 
happiness. The clouds which darkened the sky above us had 
the sunshine behind them; the snow which was tiilling from 
them was destined when the sunshine came, as come it would, 
to be caught up and carried by the burning rays of the sun 
back to the heavens from which it came. The trees, sir, were 
bare, but I thought that soon the warm breath of spring would 
come to take them in its loving embrace, aiul they, too, would 
bloom and blossom with a new and beautiful life. 

This may be a trite but it is a consoling suggestion, sir, of 
the bloom and blossom of that inmiortal life which I pray and 
believe is to be given us all in the world beyond. But, sir, 
there came to me another consoling retlection. Whilst it was 
certain that all this renewal of life of inanimate nature would 
come, what was it which was to bring the laughing life U]ion 
the barren bough ' Whence was it to come ? It was to come, 
sir, as a result of the mighty conservation of energy, that great 
law by which nature provides for the throwing off of the use- 
less and the dross, and the conservation for fruetuation there- 
after of the strength and beauty of existence. 

May we not feel that it was so with the colleague whom we 
laid to rest in his mother earth ? Holding up his life well done, 
and all the good deeds in it, may we not feel sure that, passing 
from life into immortality, not the immortality of ijagauism or 
the more illusory immortality of a sublimated pantheism, but 
into that blissful hope of immortality born of the faith of Chris- 
tianity, he carried to his account all the good deeds of his life. 
•'Their works do follow them.'' 

Thinking thus, sir, there canu* to my mind those words of 
inefl'able consolation, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they 
shall see God." 



32 Address of Mr. Ilo/ad/, of Colorado, on tin 



Address of Mr. Wolcott, of Colorado. 

Mr. President: Tlune is u kiii.sbii> among men who have a 
cwivmmi alma Matvr. It is iutaugible, vague; is uot deiieudent 
on earlier aetiuaiiitaiice or similarity of pursuits. It is born 
of the common impulse and aspirations with which a univer- 
sity inspires her sons, and i.s recognized in some subtle fashion 
as a brotherhood, always of the mind, sometimes of the heart. 
And it was probably because, years aftei his graduation from 
Yale, I, too, had for a time drawn inspiration from that fountain 
of learning, that Senator Gibson met me when I came here a 
stranger and made me know him for a friend. 

He was of that glorious class of 185.S, whose members have 
adorned every profession and ;idded strength and luster to 
the judiciary, to cabinets, to Congress, the press, and to human 
eiibrt in countless directions in this generation of men. Of 
them all none wielded wider or better influence than (tIisson; 
none was so much loved. 

The impress of his university was strong uixni liim. >Sur- 
rounded by classmates and college friends at our annual 
reunions, he reveled in the recollection of his college days. 
Devoting largely of his time and eft'ort to the university of his 
adopted State, the administration of the Peabody fund and 
of tiie Smithsonian, of which he was a regent, he everywhere 
gave token of the belief he cherished that education was the 
leaven which should lift this ])eople to the truest a])]n'eciation 
of the value of republican institutions — a l)elief which his col- 
lege had inspired, and the fiuit of her teaching. 

The generation now in its full manhood is the first since the 
foundation of the licjniblic to .see only a free iieoi)le within 
the limits of our broad domain. To the added incentive which 
freedom has brought is due mucii ot' the vast progress in arts 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 33 

aud sciences aud in civiIii;ation which has marked the last 
twenty years. These are glorious days, but iu nothing so 
glorious or instructive or majestic as that in them there is 
permitted to our vision and understanding that to which all 
history affords no parallel, and which to coming generations 
will never be wholly comprehensible. 

We have witnessed citizens of the Republic, who took up 
arms against it and sought unsuccessfully to compass its 
division and overthrow, come back into the Union, take part 
iu its government, intrusted with a large share iu the shaping 
of its policy, animated only by lofty and patriotic devotion to 
its welfare, aud representing communities which breathe only 
loyalty and love for our reunited country. Randall Gibson 
was of these— a noble exemplar of the type. His path was 
marked for him by his duty as he saw it, and, dwelling not on 
old differences, it is blessed to remember that the flag his boy- 
hood's eyes tirst saw unfurled was the flag he loved when those 
eyes closed in death. 

He must have had consummate political ability, for the 
politics of his State have been always in ferment; but we saw 
nothing of that side of him. We saw only the calm, quiet 
repose, the delightful, highbred urbanity. He had the quali- 
ties of a statesman; but he had more, he had that which 
charmed; and this charm and the personal influence of his 
pure life brought him added strength. Alive to the interests 
of his section, he told eloquently of tiie devastation the Mis- 
sissippi had wrought, and the doubts which caution raised as to 
legality were swept away, aud Congress gave him the help his 
people needed. And during the struggle over the election 
bill, sometimes called the force bill, his woids took (loul)le 
force from the fact that no man knew him who did not know 
also that his high soul would never stoop to injure the poorest 
black man who toiled on ;i Louisiana plantation. 
S. Mis. ITS 3 



34 Address of Mr. ]\'olcott, of Colorado, on the 

He bad iiiivaryiiit; courtesy and fine simplicity of manner, 
coupled witli firmness, which was none the weaker because it 
wasuno btrusive. He was a citizen of the world, but that which 
soils never touched him. His thoughts turned always toward 
kindliness. Once, when he spoke to me of (Jtvsar, whom he 
greatly admired, he dwelt with emphasis on the streng'th and 
warmth of Cai-sar's friendships, and how, when he was stricken 
down, he thought not of escape, but only to cover his face that 
he might not witness the treachery of his friend. 

Senator Gibson always recalled to me, in jiersou and in char- 
acter, Colonel Newcome. You remember the touching lines of 
Thackeray which tell of his passing away. "At tiie usual 
evening hour the chai)el bell began to toll, and Thomas Ne\v- 
come's hands outside the bed feebly beat time. And just as 
the last bell struck a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, 
and he lifted up his head a little, and ipiickly said ' Adsum!' 
and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names 
were called; and lo, he, whose heart was as that of a little 
child, had answered to his name and stood in the presence of 
The Master.'' I have shrunk from learning about Senator 
Gibson's last days, for paiu and he had long known each other, 
and I fear he sutfered much; but we may know tluxt lie died 
as he had lived, fearlessly and uncomplainingly, as became so 
true and gallant and brave a heart. 

He has traveled tie way of all men born of" woman, the great 
souls and the little. "One event hai)peneth to them all," and 
from none has yet come a voice <rar ears can hear. If there be 
somewhere souls of men who have lived, he sits in goodly com- 
pany, with the truest and the best. If that which was Gibson 
now lies in the earth, returned to our common mother, he will 
yet live in the higher and jnirer thoughts and nobler endeavor 
of his fellow-men. towards which his blameless life was both 
the incentive and the cxaniple. 



Li/e and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 35 



ADDRESS OF MR. GORDON, OF GEORGIA, 

Mr. President: Eulogies, whether of the living or dead, 
are to be commended so far only as they are merited and true. 
No criticism is intended of that custom which converts the 
grave into a sort of '-lloly of Holies," beyond whose barred 
portals the Spirit of Detraction shall not pass. That the ani- 
mosities engendered by the conflicts of a lifetime shall all be 
buried with the dead is the authoritative mandate of universal 
humanity; and yet loyalty to the living, especially to those 
whose characters are still unformed, forbids indiscriminate 
praises, after death, of tlie man who did not merit them while 
living. 

That venerable law, consecrated by the enlightened senti- 
ment of ages, which forbids that evil shall be spoken of the 
dead, is ennobling charity, God-like and beautiful, even iu its 
blindness; but, Mr. President, it is far more Godlike and beau- 
tiful to live a life which requires neither the embellishing 
touch of charity to guild its virtues, nor the shroud and coffin 
to conceal its deformities — a life which may be eulogized, not 
simply because it is ended, but because it was worthily spent. 

Such a life was that of Randall Lee Gibson. It was 
begun in that portion of Kentucky which is unique in its 
beauty, exceptional in its industrial developments, and inspir- 
ing in its surroundings and associations. His character 
received its tone and vigor and coloring on a Southern plan- 
tation and under the molding influences of that inherited 
institution which for a century made of the Southern peoi)le 
a peculiar one in their conspicuous isolation, which subjected 
them to constant and perhaps natural misconstruction, and 
which at last involved them in bloodv war; an institution 



3() Address 0/ Mr. Gordon, of Georgia, 07t the 

wliicli (^Yllatever else, may be said of it) has left as its lasting 
landmarks a long line of heroic figures, who witli marked indi- 
viduality, with great intellectual vigor, with acute sensibilities 
and sterling integrity have won a title to the gratituile of 
posterity because of their services to the jjeople and the 
Eepublic. 

General Gibson's life and character formed one of these 
great landmarks, and was the legitimate outgrowth of this 
peculiar civilization. 

That character was both strong and symmetrical. When 
I say that General Gibson was brave I would not be under- 
stood as afflrndng merely that he possessed that order of cour- 
age which characterizes the true soldier of every age. This he 
exhibited in battle to a degree which made him conspicuous, 
even in an army whose intrepidity has not been excelled in 
the annals of war. But 1 allude in this connection to that 
nobler courage which enabled him to follow without trepida- 
tion the lead of his own commanding sense of duty unswerved 
by the apprehension of i)ersoual loss. 

He was a general in the Confederate army, brave, knightly, 
and true; and he was equally true to all the obligations 
imi)osed by the failure of the Confederate cause. Xone 
who knew him ever doubted the extent or depth of liis sincere 
loyalty to the restored union of the States and to all the mnni- 
ments, limitations, rights, and powers of the American Cou- 
stitution. 

He was a man of intellect, of (iareful study, and of rare 
acquirements. He was possessed of all the manly virtues; 
and yet his nature was one of singular delicacy and of almost 
perennial sweetness. His native gifts, his extensive acquire- 
ments, his knightly sjjirit and courtly manner made him the 
fit representative here and everywhere of a great and cul- 
tured people. 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. o? 

He was au liouest mau. I do not mean to assert simply that 
his personal integrity never bent before temptation nor was 
ever sullied by the faintest stain. All this ; but far more. His 
was of that most exalted type of honesty which is at once the 
streugtli and ornament of the soitl, which enshrines justice as 
a religion and enthrones truth as a divinity. 

When such a life goes out it leaves, like the setting sun, 
radiance behind it, which does not, however, fatle with the 
passing day, but which, though mellowed and softened by 
the shadows of death, is still, a beacon guiding us to a better 
life here and to the higher and nobler one beyond. 



Address of Mr. Voorhees, of Indiana. ■ 

Mr. Presidknt: Grief aud sorrow remain with the living; 
peace and rest go with the dead. The tortured brow, the tear- 
stained eye, the heart of anguish, the wail of woe, the lonely, 
sleepless vigil; the despairing outlook on each new breaking 
day; all these things belong to the precincts of time, and not 
to those who have been laid down to sleep in the embrace of 
their mother earth. The relations between the living and the 
dead, and the loss and gain to each, have taxed the anxious 
questioning spirit of all the ages and of every race. 

At every step of the skeleton foot of death come also the 
well-known scenes, and the unsolved mysteries of the eldest as 
well as of the latest born generations. With every visitation 
of the glass aud scythe, the same strained, startled look and 
terrified vigilance are to be seen bending in imjiotent love aud 
tears over the dying as in all the centuries of the past. That 
quick, swift, high look of vivid, Joyous recognition which 
comes so often as a glimiise of anotiier world into the faces of 



38 Address of Mr. Voorhees^ of Indiana, on the 

llic lime aud Justin their passing hour, is still to be seen as in 
t he days of old, when the heavens were opened and augels 
ap))eared to the children of men, and with unaided reason we 
can know no more, we can go no farther. 

We yearn to i>enetrate the future with the belo\ed ones who 
are torn from our clinging arms; we long to lift the veil of 
mystery whicli hides them from our embrace; we knock at the 
tomb and would wrench its iron bars apart to keep unbroken 
the fond relations of time and sense. What sad heart has uot 
in some desolate hour cried out: 

Ob, wauilerer in uuknown laiick, what cheerf 

How (lost thou fare on lliy mysterious way? 

What strange light breaks upon thy distant day, 
Vet leaves me lonely in the darkness here? 

Oh, bide uo longer in that far-ott' sphere, 

Though all heaven's cohorts should thy footsteps stay; 
Break through their splendid, militant array. 

And answer to my call, O dead and dear! 

I shall not fear thee, howsoe'er thou come; 

Thy coldness will not chill, though death is cold; 
A touch and I shall know thee, or a breath : 
Speak the old, well-known language, or be dumb ; 
Only come back ! Be near me as of old, 
•So thou and 1 shall triumph over Death! 

All is ill vain. Hollow echoes, like dismal, unmeaning sounds 
ftxmi dark, untenanted caves of earth, respond to our intense 
and constant calls so long as we are guided by no other inspi- 
ration than our own. 

Rut yesterday the gifted, graceful, accomplished, and beloved 
Senator from Louisiana stood in the pride and beauty of his 
manhood here in our nndst. In this small body of less than a 
hundred men comjiosing the Senate of the United States his 
was a personality of high and inaikeil distinction. 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 39 

The cliaini of his presence still lingers in this great Hall. 
The unatfected dignity of his bearing, the sweet courtesy of his 
manner, the eloquence of his tongue, his winning smile, the 
warm grasp of his hand, will never pass from the memory of 
those who knew him best. All our relations to him while 
living were of the most elevated, attectionate, and ennobling 
character. What are our relations to him now? Can it be 
that they are all broken, shattered, dissevered, and forever 
lost, never to be resumed nor restored in a more permanent 
life than this? 

Can it be that in the brief space of our separation he has 
gone from irs as far as the generations who perished before the 
flood and in the morning years of creation? The ties that 
bound us to Keuna, to Barbour, Beck, Logan, Conkling, Car- 
penter, David Davis, Hendricks. McDonald, Blaine, and others 
who might be named, are they all hopelessly sundered, not 
only here in the cold and wintry day of life, but also in the 
immortal summer beyond ? 

Sir, tokens of honor and ceremonial tributes to the dead are 
evidences paid by human instinct as well as by religious faith 
that the relations of life are not destroyed by death. The 
jjomp and pageantry of martial array, the swelling funeral 
dirge, and the parting volley over the dead soldier carry with 
them the love of his comrades, not merely for his memory, but 
for him per.sonally in the new existence he has assumed. The 
high pealing notes of the anthem and the lofty eloquence of the 
orator over the mortal remains of the honored statesman, the 
eminent ecclesiastic, or other public benefactor are not inspired 
by the cold clay there lying in state, nor alone by the memory 
of glorious earthly achievements, but in far higher degree by 
the feeling that the great liberated soul still lives and may be 
known by us again iu the future. 

And so, too, it is with the humblest mourners who bedew tlie 



40' Address of Mr. Voorhees^ of Indiana., oii the 

graves of their loved ones with tears and strew their peaceful 
restiiij;' places with flowers. The mother, the father, the sou, 
the (laughter, the brother, the sister, all kiudreds, are sus- 
taiued, soothed, and upheld in their bereavements by a natu- 
ral as well as by a religious faith that the living and the dead 
are not lost to each other. 

Sir, the biographical sketch of the Senator from Louisiana, 
pro{)er to such an occasion as this, has been spoken by others; 
the leading incidents of his brilliant career have been given, 
and but little, if anything, remains to be said except what may 
be suggested by his personal characteristics. In the whole 
course of my life I have not known a more attractive, consid- 
erate gentleman than Randall L. Gib.son. Our lelations 
were those of an iutimate, confiding friendship. We never 
met nor parted without a mutual recognition of this jjleasiug 
fact. We sometimes, too, traced the blood that flowed in our 
veins back into the veins of ancestral kindred, and greatly 
enjoyed the idea that we were clansmen from "the Blue-grass 
Lands,'' though now in exile, and meeting here from other 
States. 

General Gibson was born in Woodford County, Ky., sixty 
years ago last September, and his early life was spent and 
forme d, as it were, in a camp of chivalry. Men of the highest 
note and distinction appeared to his youthful gaze every day 
in the lists of the tournament. In the courts, at the hustings, 
in legislative halls, and wherever else the i)eople or their rep- 
resentatives were assembled, there the genius and the gallantry 
of Clay, Bowman, Crittenden, theMarshal]s,the Breckinridges, 
an d others of the first magnitude displayed thejuselves in pro- 
fusiiin and stamped their infiuence on rising generations. 

From the days of Boone and of Harrod to the present hour, 
whether in peace or in war, Kentucky has been the high school 
of eloquence, statesmanship, and courage; and never from her 



Life and Cliaracter of Randall Lee Gibson. 41 

portals went forth a nobler sou or a truer type of her culture, 
as well as other native graces, than the Senator ft-om Louisi- 
ana, who was carried back on the 19th of last December and 
laid down at Lexington to rest forever in her loving bosom. 
In that more than royal i^ecropolis, in that city of the famous 
* dead, by the side of Breckinridge and Beck, after life's titfirl 
fever, he sleeps well. 

General Gibson was an educated man in the fullest and best 
sense. He was a student in the schools of his native and of 
his adopted State, and graduated with honor at Tale. He was 
a traveler in foreign countries, and enriched his mind by an 
intelligent observation of their inhabitants and the methods 
of their governments. His natural gifts were brilliant, and 
his acquirements were extensive and versatile. His interest 
in the various and widespread branches of learning is shown 
by the numerous employments he held at the time of his death 
in connection with great institutions and important move- 
ments for the diffusion of knowledge and tlie jjromotion of 
the sciences. 

He was president of the board of administrators of the Tu- 
lane University of Louisiana, one of the administrators of the 
Howard Memorial Library of New Orleans, a Eegent of the 
Smithsonian Institution, a trustee of the Peabody Education 
Fund, and he gave his earnest, active attention to the duties 
of each one of these important trusts. ♦ 

During the eight years of his distinguished service in the 
House and almost ten years in the Senate he fulfilled with con- 
spicuous ability and fidelity every duty devolved upon a Mem- 
ber or a Senator in Congress, and found time besides to per- 
manently associate his name with the highest and most pow- 
erful agencies in the cause of universal education. He was 
not a loiterer in life's vineyard; he slept not on his post; he 
toiled forward and jjushed onward to the end, with his face to 



42 Address of Mr. Voorhees, of India>ia, on the 

the opening dawn and spreading light of a more glorious 
future for his country and for the great family of man. 

But still other distiuctious than those of the schools, the 
universities, the courts, and the political arena came to the 
late Senator from Louisiana in his early life. Stauding upon 
the inviting threshold of his peculiarly i)romising career, at 28 
years of age he heard the cannon's opening roar in that dread 
conflict between the sections of a common country which was 
to exorcise forever the spirit and the cause of sectionalism and 
to wipe out a mutual misfortune. He stepped at once into the 
ranks of those with whom his honor and his life were cast, and 
with purposes as pure and courage as serene as ever animated 
a soldier's breast he fought out his side of the mighty issue, 
and saw at last, according to the immutable decrees of Almighty 
God. the banner of the Lost Cause drooft and fall, never to be 
lifted up or unfurled again. 

Whether at the head of his company or leading a regiment, 
whether putting his brigade into a(;tiou or commanding a divi- 
sion on the bloody Held, it was plain to all from the beginning 
to the end of the war that General Gibson was possessed in 
an eminent degi-ee of the highest qualities of a great soldier. 
This fact needs no other evidence than his rapid rise from civil 
life, without military education, to high and successful com- 
mands in the midst of a warlike people at a most warlike 
period, and in competition with the pride and training of West 
Point, freshly resigned from the old LTnited States Army. 

Obedient without question or murmur to Lis superiors in 
rank; gentle and gracious, though decisive; quick and firm 
in command, he was a model soldier in one of the severest and 
most exacting wars in the world's history. He was the Sir 
Philip Sidney of his day. When that more than princely 
Englishman, governor of Flushing and general of horse at 32 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibsott. 43 

yciirs of age, waived his dying thirst ou the stricken tiehl of 
Zutpheu to a private soldier whose need seemed greater than 
his own, his lofty and generous soul bloomed out in an act of 
selfsacriflcing, chivalric courtesy with which the world has 
been illuminated for more than three hundred years. 

In all the elements which composed his uatui-e, in the refine- 
ment of his cultivation, in his unselfish love for his fellow-men, 
and in his modest silence in regard to his own merits or suffer- 
ings, the Senator from Louisiana, whose death we mourn, was 
on an easy level with the dying liritish hero, liad the occasion 
called. 

Of General Gibson's loTig, useful, and distinguished services 
in civil life it is needless here and now to speak. They are 
indelibly written in the archives of his country, and there they 
will remain while American history endures. 

Many of her gifted sons, both native and adopted, has Louis- 
iana furnished to the service of the Eepublic but none with 
purer fame or a brighter, stronger record for the public good 
than the statesman, the soldier, the gentleman who has just 
crossed over the river out of our sight. He will return no 
more to the great, historic Commonwealth through which the 
current of the mighty Mississippi throbs its way into the 
ocean; he will never again revisit the land of the magnolia, 
the cypress, and the palm, nor walk the loved and familiar 
streets of the Crescent City; but the memory of his noble life, 
full of good deeds and crowned by a Christian faith, will remain 
forever fresh and green in the hearts of the people whom he 
served with faithful, intense devotion from the morniiig to the 
evening of his sojoui-n upon earth. 

Sir, the repeated andrapid visitations of death in tliis Cham- 
ber would wreathe it in perpetual gloom, festoon its walls 
unceasingly with funeral crape, and api)all the boldest, bravest 



44 Address of Mr. Slier man, of Ohio, on the 

of its members, wwe it uot that we are sustained, as was our 
late associate in bis dying hour, by tlie assurance so well told 
by an old English writer: 

The uioiv we sink into the intirniities of age thenearer we are to immortal 
youth. All people are young iu the other world. That state is an eternal 
spring, ever fresh and flourishing. To pass from midnight into noon on 
the sudden, to be decrepit one minute and all spirit and activity the next, 
must lie a desirable change. To call this dying is an abuse of language. 



ADDRESS OF MR, SHERMAN, OF OHIO. 

Mr. President : Never before in any period of my public 
service have we been so frequently called to mourn the death 
of our associates. Here in this Senate Chamber, in the Hall 
of the House of Representatives, and iu the supreme judicial 
tribunal of our country, seats have recently been made vacant 
and draped in mourning. Many of the most brilliant aud dis- 
tinguished actors in the great events of our time have, within 
a brief period, met the inevitable fate that awaits us all. It is 
fitting, even in the hurry of the closing days of the session, 
that we should pause a while iu our public duties to place on 
record our appreciation of the character aud services of our 
departed associates. In the presence of death the ties of 
friendship become cherished memories. The contention of 
opposing opinions is forgotten, and with charity and loving 
kindness we, the survivors, holding our own lives by a feeble 
tenure, gather here to .speak words of tenderness, generosity, 
aud hope. 

No member of the Senate among the living or the dead was 
more free from the bitterness of i)ersonal and political strife 
rb;iu Randall Lee Gibson. 1 do not recall a single ])hrase 
01' word uttered bv him that could wound the feelings of any 



Life and Chai-actcr of Randall Lcc Gibson. 45 

of his I'ellow-Seiiators. Always a gentleman, be instinctively 
observed the <'(mitesy and kindness due to his associates, how- 
ever much he might differ with them in opinion. He was 
favored in early life with excejjtional opportunities for educa- 
tion, and improved them wisely. He graduated at Yale Col- 
lege with high honor, and in due time received his diploma 
from the law department of the University of Louisiana. He 
then had the great advantage of three years of study and 
travel in Europe. 

This training did not, as sometimes is the case, excite in 
General Gibson egotism, pride, or selfishness, or a fondness 
for the institutions, fashions, or dress of foreign countries in 
preference to those of his own. He was in every sense an 
American, genial, cordial, and considerate in his manner; plain 
and simple in his dress; without a shade of ostentation. 

His birth in Kentucky and his lifelong residence in Louisiana 
naturally carried him into the Confederate service. There he 
exhibited the qualities of a good soldier; brave, attentive to 
duty, obedient to orders. He won distinction on many of the 
great battlefields of the civil war. He rose fi'om the ranks to 
the command of a division. 

We have come to regard this fierce and sanguinary struggle 
as an inheritance from our fathers, growing out of an honest 
diflference of opinion as to the framework of our Government. 
Poor human nature could provide no arbitrator to settle this 
c<mtention, but now that it has been settled by a sacrifice of 
life and treasure almost unexampled in human history, it can 
be truly said that the result is heartily acquiesced in, and that 
no slumbering tires can rise from the ashes of the civil war to 
disturb the unity, integrity, and power of this great Republic. 
I know that this was the conviction of General Gibson. 

All that he has said and done since the clo.se of the war is 
in harmony with the opinions of Washington and Marshalh 



■It) Address of Mr. Shcrniati, of Ohio, on the 

that onr eountiy is an indestructible union of all tlie people 
of a jjreat nation living in forty-four sejiarate .States m Lar- 
moniotis union, each State possessed of all the powers of an 
independent government except those gTanted to tlie General 
Government or prohibited to the States. This compound sys- 
tem of government is likened to the solar system, one sun im- 
parting strength, order, and safety to its circling planets, each 
revolving in its orbit and caring for the life, education, and 
Imppiness of its jicoide. In this way only can a vast region of 
diversified employments and productions and varied interests 
be bound together in a homogeneous whole, insuring protection 
to all against foreign powers and home rule to cacli ])art. In 
this Senate we are the representatives of local interests, but 
bound to consider them in subordination to the good of the 
country at large. In the performance of these duties General 
Gibson was a faithful Representative and Senator. He was 
able to render to the people of Louisiana the most valuable 
services, especially in the improvement of the Mississippi Kiver, 
but he was also conservative in all the great (juestions that 
affected our intercourse with foreign nations, our national cur- 
rency, and the development and protection of our national in- 
dustries. 

The services of General Gibson as a Keprcsentative and 
Senator from Louisiana can more fitly be stated by his col- 
league and his successor. My respect for his memory and my 
sincere sorrow for his death are founded upon my knowledge 
and appreciation of Ins character as a man. the purity of his 
life, tlie charm of his social intercourse, and liis devotion to 
his wife and cliildren. 

My personal ac(iuaintance with him commenced when he was 
a member of the House of Representatives and 1 an executive 
officer. We lived in adjoining houses and were neighbors in 
tlie best sense of that woi'd for several vears. Our families 



Life and Character of Randall Lcc Gibson. 47 

liad coustaut and faiuiliar iutercourse. Our lines of political 
action were far apart, but this did not interrupt in the slight- 
est degree the interchange of thought and feeling between us. 
He was well informed and had clear opinions upon almost 
every question of science, ethics, history, and politics. He 
was modest in expressiiig his views, but he always imparted 
information and was on the side of law, order, justice, purity, 
and honor. 

I never heard him say anything that might not be repeated 
in the family circle, or that would excite the reproaches of re- 
ligious men and women. He was a man of liberal and enlight- 
ened views, kind and generous, well educated, not only in the 
learning of the schools, but in all the varied knowledge that 
comes to a careful student; an habitual reader, an observant 
traveler, a good lawyer, blessed also with ample means and a 
happy home, with a family devoted to him. 

It is his home life, rather than his life as a soldier, a Eepre- 
sentative, or a Senator, that I wish to recall and present in 
this brief tribute to his memory. If he could speak to us from 
the grave, it would not be of the pride and circumstance of 
war, or the intellectual struggle of debate, but of his wife and 
children, of his personal friends, of his companionship with 
books, and his tranquil happiness of home. The loss of his 
wife was a deep affliction to him. May we not hoi)e that in 
the immortal life promised by our Christian faith, the ])mi- 
found belief of humanity from the earliest ages, that which we 
believe in but can not prove, the spirit of Senator Gibson will 
be found wortliy of a place among the spirits of those who in 
this life have been honorable, true, and faithful to their honest 
convictions of duty. 



48 Address of Mr. Mills, of Texas, on the 



ADDRESS OF Mr. Mills, of Texas. 

Mr. PUESIDENT : Tbe distinguished Senator whose recent 
loss the State of Louisiana and the whole country mourns was 
a conspicuous figure in American history for more than a quar- 
ter of a century. Four years of that time he was a prominent 
commander in the armies of the Confederate States, and by 
cool and stead}' courage and unerring judgment in held and 
council he continually rose in the esteem of the government, 
the armies, and the people, till at the close of hostilities he was 
one of a cluster of bright stars tliat illuminated the Southern 
skies. 

In every position in which he was placed he measured up to 
the full standard of all its requirements, howevei' arduous, dif- 
ficult, or dangerous the duties which it exacted. He had what 
is not the common heritage of all men when in the presence of 
great responsibilities and great peril — a calm, imperturbable 
confidence in himself. He rested with perfect repose upon the 
convictions of his own judgment. He never reached a conclu- 
sion by assault, but always by the slow ap]iroaches of his own 
reason. When his resolution was reached, if to attain what it 
required the forlmii hope was to be led, no one rode at its 
front with steadier nerve than he. As he appeared to me his 
mental and physical constitution was destitute of enthusiasm. 
In all the amenities of social life he displayed many of the 
characteristics of the French, who constituted a large part of 
the population of his State, but as a soldier he had none of 
that quality which the French call vlan, and which we would 
call impetuosity. 

He had more of the dogged stubbornness of the Scotch than 
of tiie French, and on the held was a MacDonald rather than 



Life and Clniraclcr of Randall Lee Gibson. 49 

a Murat. lit- moved along the lines of life in wsir and peac-e 
as be was attracted and drawn by the cold convictions of duty. 
TUe alarm of a fire bell at night would not make his eyes glow 
with unusual light or his blood flow witli a quickened pace. 
In an emergency of any kind the first questions that arose in 
bis mind were : What can I do ? What should I do? Having 
solved them, he would proceed to do what bis judgment dic- 
tated, and in executing bis resolution be woidd bring into 
active exertion all the resources of his mind and body. 

In open war in the field some commanders of equal courage 
and intelligence will achieve greater success in defending, 
while others will win greater success in assailing, (ieneral 
GiBSdN was one of the former class. Enthusiasm and even 
reckless audacity are often invaluable m the oftensive. But 
tbey were qualities he did not pos.sess and could not command. 
He had that other quality so conspicuous in tlie English 
troops, and which Macaulay says gave its highest exhibition 
" in the closing hours of a disastrous and murderous dav." 
He had stubborn courage, will power, dogged pertinacity, and 
self reliance. 

He would have been a great brigade or division commander 
under Stonewall Jackson, but as a corps commander he never 
would have attempted what Jackson accomplished. Had be 
been in command of the Federal troops in the valley of Vir- 
ginia his camp would never have been surjjrised and stormed 
by Early, nor would he ever have rallied and united his broken 
and routed columns and led tfeem to victory as Sheridan did. 
His mental constitution was cast in a mold very much like 
that of General Pat Cleburne. Cleburne was an Irishman 
utterly destitute of that impulsiveness so characteristic of 
bis people. He bad neither the vivacity, the wit, nor the 
bumor of an Irishman. He was as complete a stranger to 
enthusiasm as be was to physical and moral fear. He was 
S. Mis. 178 4 



50 Address of Air. Mi/ Is, of Texas, on tlie 

alwiiys calm and thoroughly niaster of himself and of his 
situation. No man, iu my judgment, in either army, could 
hold so many of his men around liini wheu desperately assailed. 
If he was ordered to advance and attack, lie did it as he 
would move upon the tield for inspection. He would sit un- 
moved on his horse and would see his division strike like a 
bolt of thvmder, and no member of his command could tell, 
from reading his face, whether the battle was going well or 
ill. Ho wore the same features on the drill tield as on the 
battletield. •General Gibson was of tlie same mold and had 
mauy of the same qualities. He was always courteous, dis- 
creet, never rash, and never transported with enthusiasm. 
His courage and self-command rose with the emergency and 
showed at its best when put to the severest test. 

Every commander will impress his own character upon his 
troops. I have seen the same brigade under two different 
commanders at different times. Under one it never failed to 
recoil and break under hre; under the other it always stood 
a wall of adamant. One attracted and riveted the contiilence 
of his troops and the other repelled it. No commander with- 
out personal courage can have the respect of his troops, and 
without capacity to handle them he can not have tlieir confi- 
dence. He must so lead them that they will be promt of their 
achievements when they stand in the presence of their com- 
rades and in the eyes of their country. No soldier ever saw 
General Gibson on any tield where \w was not master of him- 
self and of his situation and where his troops were not pi-oud 
of their commander. 

No one ever saw liiin recklessly expose his conunand wliere 
it would be taken at disadvantage. He never sought to win 
glory for himself by the unnecessary eflusiou of blood. He 
kept his eye steadily fixed n\w\\ the attainment of an end, and 
that with as little loss and suffering as jxissible to his com- 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 51 

maud and his comitiy. It was this splendid trait m Ins cliar- 
acter tbat won the eonfideuee and affection of his comrades 
and enabled him to win reputation iu the army and au 
abiding i)lace in tlie alieetions and memtjry of his countrymen. 

It was my fortune to know him as a stateman as well as a 
soldier. I served with iiini many years in the other end of 
the Capitol. He exhibited the same traits in civil that he 
had displayed iu juilitary life. Duty to those who had placed 
him iu a high i)ublic trust was the law that governed all his 
actions. He was a laborious, i)aiustaking Representative. He 
would iuvestigate every question thoroughly before he would 
determine his course upon it. He soon took a promineut 
jiosition in the deliberations of that body, and his utterances 
always had great weight witli its members. He was not fond 
of speaking. He spok<^ rarely and only, as it seeujed, when 
diiveu to it by a conviction that it was necessary he should do 
so. When it was a necessity to speak he had that rare fac- 
ulty of knowing when to (|uit. He realized the fact that his 
speech would be more effe(!tive if liis words would cease with 
his ideas, and accomiiKxhited liis speech to his convictions. 

I have known him in tiie army, iu the House, iu the (Senate, 
and in his family. In all the long years of our acquaintance 
our relations were close, and 1 liad opportuuity to see him in 
all the phases (d" his character. He was always the same; 
devoted to his country, his family, and his duty. He was au ^^ 
affectionate husband, and towards his children he had the 
weakness of a mother. 1 d()uL)t if he ever learned to say no 
to one of them in answer to any request. I have been with 
him weeks at a time when he was in the midst of his family, 
and 1 was often reminded of that king of France who said that 
his baby was the most powerful subject in ids kiugdoni, and 
when asked why rejjlied that his child ruled his mother, the 
mother ruled him. and he ruled France. In General tJmsoN's 



52 Address of Mr. McPhcrson, of Nciv Jersey, on the 

caso, the children ruled the father without the intervention of 
the mother, as is often the case outside as well as inside the 
boundaries of France, 
v/ His wife preceded Mm to the grave; and he now sleei)s bj- 
her side in the warm and generous bosom of tlie State upon 
whose soil he was born, and for whom throughout his whole 
life lie cherished the most unfaltering affection. He was proud 
of Louisiana and loved her people with the devotion of a child. 
He lived to reflect honor upon her who had honored him. For 
her he had spent his life in peace and oft'ered it in war, but 
when death came it made a child of him again, and he wanted 
to sleep with the ashes of his fathers in the beautiful green at 
Lexington. There his country and his kindred consent for 
him to rest until the Author of his being shall awake him from 
bis tomb and bid him arise at the dawn of a new day and i)ut 
on immnrtalitv and eternal lite. 



Address of Mr, McPherson, of New Jersey, 

Mr. President: Turning back the pages of the book of 
time for two short years, a brief era in a nation's life, in retro- 
spective view we find a current of sad events, all teaching a 
lesson which the living may well lay to his heart. In that 
short period the angel of death has four times in\aded this 
Chamber, and each time removed from mortal eye across the 
dark river one of our loved and honored members. 

To those taken, life was no less sweet than to us who remain. 
Torn from the loving embrace of family and the companion- 
ship of friends by the ruthless hand of death, he, once our 
brpther, is summoned hence to enter, naked, sdent, and alone, 
the confines of the spirit world. How sad the thought that 
all must die alone, and alon(^ nuist cross the dark ri\er to 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 53 

that other country of which wekuow nothing. Tne past alone 
is ours; the future belongs to God. The gxassy hillock that is 
piled o'er the icy bosom, and the record of deeds done in the 
body, is all that is left to earth of Randall L. Gibson. 

I need not speak of Ids life history and work; the elo(iuent 
Senator from his own State will tell the story of his earlier 
manhood. I will speak of him only as I knew liini in the 
noonday of his life and the full glory of his mental and 
physical strength. While I can not hope to add to the wealth 
of eulogy worthy to be bestowed upon our dei)arted friend, 
my tribute to his memory is not to him as a soldier or states- 
man, and lie excelled in both, but to him as a man — a man of 
pure and lofty purposes, of pure thoughts, and pure life. As 
a thinker he was given to retrospect, and in the teachings of 
history he found a guide to his feet, a light U\ ins j)ath. 
History repeats itself, he was wont to say, and with the expe- 
rience of the past before us why can we not avoid many of the 
faults and misfortunes of the present. 

My first aciiuaiutance with Randall Gibson was a chance 
one. Some time after the late civil war, and after the jiassions 
which inspired it had measurably difed away, I met him at 
Brussels, in Belgium, and introduced myself. He had a cliarm 
aliout him always to me irresistible, and, being invited by liim, 
together we visited Waterloo, the most famous battlefield of 
modern times, toward which the traveler of every race now- 
turns his footstejjs. Passing under the gateway where the 
Belgian lion keeps guard over the dead of three great nations, 
we strolled to the heights above to where upon that fated field 
the Emperor watched the battle. The guide pointed out to 
us the theater of chief events in that memorable struggle in 
whicli the armies of England, France, and Prussia met in 
deadly conflict. No detail escaped the eye and ear of Mr. Gib- 
son, and at times, soldier like, his mind seemed reveling in 



o4 .hMress of Mr. McPhcrson, of Nciv Jersey, on /he 

the joyous frenzy of the fiylit, but later in the day, as the excite- 
ment wore away, he turned to me and exclaimed (iu substance) : 
How horrible even to contemplate. The blood that stained this 
ground was shed in vain. Beneath our feet lie moldering in 
one common grave the bones of Briton and (iaul, who know 
not for what they fought, except it be for the glory that waits 
on victory. And what did that great victory accomplish? 
What did it achieve! It gave nothing to humanity, to liberty, 
to the rights of man. In like manner, said he, except to strike 
the shackles fiom four millions of slaves, what did our late civil 
war accomplish'? What did it achieve that with wisdom aud 
forbearance could not have been achieved without it ? Why 
did not reason and judgment, both here and there, rush to the 
rescue and save the world from sacrifices so fearful and so 
unnecessary? Thus did his reflective and disciplined mind 
reason from cause to effect and from effect back to cause again, 
in respect of two great events which happened in one half cent- 
ury, and in one of which he acted so conspicuous a i)art. 

Free from passion himself, he viewed with alarm the sordid 
and sinful passions, the unreasoning yet controlling voices of 
the multitude, all mingled iu one. which had driven in hot haste 
the ruling spirit of two great continents to deluge the land in 
blood; aud, more than all, he deplored the continual existence 
of a spirit abroad in the land which might cause it to happen 
again. 

He spoke to me of Kentucky, to whose people he was bound 
by all the ties of blood and parentage; of her schools, where 
his education began, and of school friendshijjs early and long 
bestowed. He i)aid a high tilbute to Louisiana, the State of 
his adoption, to whose people he was bound by all ties of social 
and official life, and with jfratitude and obedience of heart he 
mentioned the oft-repeated evidences of her appreciation and 
regard which bound him to lier with hooks of steel. 



Life and Oiaracter of Ram/a// Lee Gibson. 55 

]Sot to he. favorablj- iiuiji-esst'd with my new-found acquaint- 
ance — from that day a friend — ;nid :ilways a cherished friend 
till the end. was quite impossible. In after years I fdniid liiin 
evei- the same. The nohility of his character, the gallantry of 
his heart and mind was visible in every act he did, or word 
spoken. A strong and resolute man has fallen. In his death 
the country has lost a champion, wiio, by experience, had learned 
the sad lesson that in a free republic resting upon the will and 
dependent upon the power of the i)eople, not to be found upon 
her side cheering with his voice and strengthening by his arm 
in her days of great peril, distress, and danger, was fraught 
alike with evil to her and to him who would profit by her mis- 
fortunes. 

To any affront, actual (ir implicil, Mr. Gib.son was morbidly 
sensitive. His was a proud and manly spirit, void of offen.se 
to others; he was ever ready to forgive a wrong or. re.sent an 
injury. As a thinker he possessed an analytical mind; as a 
statesman his every act had the sanction of mature reason and 
an excellent judgment. He.scor.ned deceit, abhorred calumny, 
and his generous natui-e forbade him to speak of others except 
in ])raise. 

It never occurred to him that he could be asked or expected 
to do anything that would sully his character, and no man ever 
suspected him of any but honest motives in all he did. 

Rest in peace, pureand ])atrioti(! heart. Though dead to us, 
the memory of thy well-ordered life will inspire our hearts to 
higher and nobler ettbrt. 



56 Address of Mr. Matidcrsoii, of Nebraska, on the 



Address of Mr. Manderson, of Nebraska. 

Mr. President : Under the pressure of many demauds 
upon me needing much time and attention, I had not expected 
to participate as one <lelivering a eulogy upon this memorial 
occasion. But when there came to me a few moments ago a 
request from the senior Senator from Louisiana that I should 
say something, liowever brief, it having come to his knowl- 
eilge that I am probably the onlj' man on this side of the 
Chamber who had such service upon the Union side that 
brought him in direct conflict during the war with Senator 
(tIBSOn, 1 felt that I ought not to decline, but should pay 
my tribute to his memory and evidence in this presence my 
recognition not only of his great and masterful ability, but of 
that patriotism so eloquently spoken of here that has guided 
his steps since tlie evil days of the war. 

As these interesting services have progressed my mind has 
been carried back over thirty years, and there comes to me 
most vividly a stirring battle scene. The Confederate array 
under General Bragg was in i)osition about ^Murfreesboro. 
The Union Army of Genera) Eosecraus had position at Nash- 
ville, over thirty miles away. In the latter part of the month 
of December, 1802, the army of Rosecrans moved upon the 
position occupied by the Confederate troops. There came 
fi-om that movement a shock of arms and a battle that stands 
forth as one of most desperate endeavor stoutly resisted, and 
as a conflict that ranks in determined fighting and in dreadful 
loss of life above any of the battles fought by Napoleon, and is 
only rivaled by Gettysburg and Antietam, and a few of the 
other great battles of our own war. 

The first day's conflict was on the .'!lst day of December, 



fjft and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. o7 

and tlieie caiiit' to tlic l*\'(lei;il Army that i)artial iciuilse 
which (hove hack its ii<;lit and which was oTdy saved trdiii 
being dire disaster and perhajjs the scattering of the army of 
Kosecrans to the four winds by the firm stand taken and lield 
in the center l)y tlie troops under brilliant Sheridan and steady 
Thomas. 

The two armies rested on their arms the next day. and on 
the morning of the I'd of January, 1S()3, it was my fortune to 
be in command of a line composed of my own regiment, the 
Nineteenth Ohio, and the Ninth Kentucky, of which regiment 
Colonel Grider was colonel, he being in command of the bri- 
gade. The demibrigadc tn-ganization composed of these two 
regiments being formed, we were ordered across Stone River, 
which was there fordable, and we took position ou the toji of 
a hill that had its easily sloping descent to the river side. 

After some little time s)>eiit there standing in line of battle, 
the two legiments under my immediate command forming the 
right of the line, there ajjpeared to our sight late that winter 
afternoon as grand a pageant as was ever seen in war. The 
solid columns of Breckinridge moved out from the position 
where it had been obscured from view by growing timber and 
reaching the edge of the timber where there was a fence about 
an open field, acting as though there was nothing in their front 
to interfere with their movement so forceful and majestic and 
with a calmness and a deliberation not usually incident to 
scenes of battle, the fence was oi)ened, the rails laid down, and 
they moved out of tiie woods into the open. 

Column after column of attack emerged from the cover in 
which they had formed and moved with a stateliuess and pre- 
cision that would chara<'terize troops upon dress parade upon 
the position where we were i)laced. Behind us was the rai)id 
stream, Stone River. On the other side of the river was the 
main body of the Federal Army lying ready to support this 



5S Address of Mr. Mandcrson, of Nebraska^ on the 

feeble brigade of trodjjs that had beeu thrown as a bait across 
the river. Ou a frowiiiug hill near at hand under the direc- 
tion of Crittenden — ^the well-known and gallant General Tom 
Crittenden, of Kentucky — Colonel Mendeuhall had massed 
fifty-one pieces of artillery, all trained with deadly precision 
upon this hill slope where the Federal brigade of Van Cleve 
was posted awaiting the Confederate attack. 

I never, Mr. President, saw such a terrible clasli of arms as 
came between that line and the advancing columns of Breckin- 
ridge. Gibson's brigade of Louisiana troops was in the lead in 
that tremendous charge. I feel like criticising the statement 
made by the Senator from Texas [Mr. Mills] when he said that 
General Gibson had none of the element of impetuosity in his 
nature, for it could not be that the column which advanced 
with such thorough desperation and such impetuous force upon 
our lines that day could have had a calm and a deliberate leader. 
We met them witli a counter charge that broke the first line of 
the Confederates and brought us to a hand-to hand conflict with 
the second line in the vigorous column of attack. Under its tre- 
mendous force our line was driven back to Stone River with 
dreadful loss of life. In my own regiment out of 449 men with 
muskets 213 were killed or wounded in the bloody battle of 
Stone River. As we recrossed the rapid-running river to what 
I may call the Federal side the guns of Mendenhall opened. It 
was as though " men fought upon the earth and fiends ni npper 
air." 

My recollection is, sir, that you (Mr. Whitk in the chair), 
in your place, when delivering your eulogy, jtaid tribute to the 
bravery of Gibson upon that field. It was well deserved, for, 
notwithstanding the dreadful loss and the natural demoraliza- 
tion that came under that dreadful discharge of fifty-one guns 
at such short range, the retiring of Gibson's brigade — in fact, 
of the entire (loinmand of Breckinridge from that field — was 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 59 

fliaiacteiized with very little disorder. They retreated in tlie 
saiiu' masterly maniuT thattliey liad advanced. 

It was luy fortune, sir, to be upon other fields iu oi)i)osition to 
General Gibson. I was also at Shiloh. 1 do not know that 
he was in the immediate front of that part of Buell's army with 
which I .served. As 1 have followed the recital of his history 
and as I have talked with him during his life, for we often 
"fought our battles o'er" as we met here and at other places 
since our service together iu this Ghamber, I recognized that 
we had moved on parallel though antagonistic lines and know 
the fact that during the AtLinta campaign we came sometimes 
in contact. 

There is upon the Presiding Officer's desk (and my calling the 
attention of the Senator from Louisiana to it was the occasion 
of my making these lemarks here) a gavel presented to me a 
little over a year ago by the men wlio served with me in my 
regiment. It is made up of woods gathered from the fields of 
several of the battles in wluch my regiment was engaged. 
There is no battle menti()n(^(l on the woods of which that gavel 
is composed that Senator Gibson did not serve upon the one 
side aud I upon the other. 

But, sir, there has come ti-oni this long and fearful conflict, 
as I beUeve, nothing but mutual respect, and I believe that 
respect, aye, a warm and hearty admiration, uot to say affection, 
unites now the men who fought upon the two sides of this great 
struggle. In saying this 1 desire to say nothing that shall 
detract from or minimize in the least the conviction I had then, 
and have now, that on this side, what I may call our side, the 
Union side, we were fighting for that which was everlastingly 
right; audi thank God, and 1 believe that every ex -Confeder- 
ate soldier thauks the God of battles, that the result has been 
what it is — a Union saved and a Union preserved. 



CO . leMirss of Mr. Caffrry, of Louisiana, on llie 

If there are any not now satistied witli tlie result they are 
not to be found among those who fought on either side. 

Mr. President, it has been a ])l('asant thing to nie as 1 lia\e 
come in contact with those who fougiit ui)ou the other side in 
that dread struggle, wliether they fought in the Bast or in the 
West, and no matter from what section of the Soutii they came, 
to recognize the fact that while they exult and properly exult 
and take pride and a proper pride in the heroism, in the cour- 
age, in the persistent endeavor that characterized their efforts, 
they rival us to-<lay in devotion to the country, in respect for 
its flag, and in patriotic determination to do all that in them 
lies to advance the interests of our common country. We have 
buried all animosities long ago in a mutual deteriiiinatioii and 
a common purpose. 

No man who served with (ieneral (rUisoN can regret his 
death more than those of us wiio fought against liim and his 
cause. We have the same respect for his memory as his com- 
rades in the war. We grieve with them over his loss. He is 
dead; but, as has been well said by others, the recollection of 
his life will be an incentive to better lives and higlier aims. 
We shall uever see him more; but his memory will live with 
us as the brightest of recollections to those who had the great 
privilege of his confldence and the favor of his friendship. 

He died as lie h;id Uved — "witliout fear and witlioiit re- 
]iroach." 

ADDRESS OF Mr. CAFFERY, OF LOUISIANA. 

Mr. President: Distinguished and eloquent Senators liave 
spoken in glowing terms of the life, <-haracter, attainments, 
and achievements of Senator Gibson. 

1 had not the privilege of an intimate acquaintance with 
him; it is denied me, therefore, to have that glow of fricn<lsln|) 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 61 

aud tliiit teiideiiiess of inciiiory wliicli throw over tlie grave 
the halo of softeiu'd and saddened seiitimeut. 

Be mine the office of brietly adverting to those (jualities of 
mind and character wliich impressed those not within the 
sacred circle of affectionate intercourse; those qiralities which 
entitle him to the respect and love of his State and liis country. 

Not like a comet diil lie shoot across the intellectual sky, 
dazzling- and disappearing, but with steady radiance he shone 
like a fixed star, emitting the briglitest and purest of rays. 
He did not spring into the martial field full armed and 
equipped, but with trained valor and cool Judgment ascended 
the steej) of fame tlirougli the roar and smoke of many a liard- 
fought battle. 

He did not, like I'itt. astoidsh as a leader before lie had 
served as a sul)altern, but rose by slow gradation to command 
the applause and attention of listening Senates. 

By i)atient labor and deep research he reached his eonclu- 
sions. If he lacked the inspiration of great genius, he gained 
the fruits of disciplined talent. If he never ascended to those 
heights which dazzle the beholder, he never fell below the 
l)lane of correct judgment. His parts were more solid than 
brilliant; his mind more analytic than inventive; his acquire- 
ments more useful than showy. 

Careful, conscientious, an«l laborious. he was a faithful pul>lic 
servant and a sagacious legislator. 

With no unsteadj' wing did he soar to high rauk in war and 
proud eminence in peace, but with even pace and inflexible 
purpose he pursued the objects of his ambition and his desire. 

I am informed by a close friend of his that his thoughts 
constantly dwelt on his "Old brigade;" that brigade which, in 
winter's snow or sunnner's heat, in the joy of victory or in the 
gloom of defeat, followed the fortunes of the "lost cause" with 
a fortitude, a jovaltv. and a courage which won the admiration 



62 Address of Mr. Caffery, of Louisiana, on the 

of warriors whose stern Joy was evoked by meeting- foenieii 
wortliy of their steel. 

The followers of the battle flags of that "Old brigade" are 
scattered over the hills and valleys, among the towns and cities 
of my native State of Louisiana. Tiie elastic tread, the erect 
form, the flashing eye, are gone with youth and war and con- 
flict. The memories that cling to the "Old brigade," the love 
and admiration of its survivors for their old general, will, like 
"immortelles," spring jjerpetual from his grave. 

Happy in his death is the man who is followed to his "nar- 
row house" by the respect and love and tears of his fellows. 
Happier the commaiuler, at mention of whose name the hoary 
heads of his companions in arms are uncovered and shaking 
hands wipe away the unbidden tear. These spontaneous 
tributes to military worth and civic virtue are wortii mort' tliaii 
" storied urn or animated bust." 

As our deceased brother served so well his State in war, so 
(lid he stand as h(r bulwark in peace. 

When, in lS7C-'77, a direful blow impended over Louisiana, 
threatening to supplement the destruction of war with the 
despair of peace, he stood forth her champion. He advocated 
her just claims with that pursuasive elo([uence and convincing 
logic which the loftiest patriotism only could iuspire. Xever 
was there such a cause and never such a client. A great State 
was pleading for her statehood. The plea was heard, was 
allowed, and the advocate was forever immortalized and for- 
ever enshrined in the heart and in the affection of his people. 
Xo brass or marble (;an ever fittingly commemorate the services 
which Senator Gibson rendered Louisiana, when lie persuaded 
(ieneral Grant to preserve the utatux quo, and afterwards Presi- 
dent Hayes to recognize Francis T. Nichols as her rightful 
and legal governor. 

The two great material works accomplished by General GlB- 



Life and CJiaracter of Randall Lee Gibson. 63 

SON were the forniatiou of the Mississippi River Commission 
and the establishmeut of TnUine University. They are both 
works of more than local bearing. The first is of national im- 
portance, and the latter exercises an inliuencefar beyond State 
boundaries. 

He had the sagacity to perceive the correctness of the plan 
of improvement of the ^fississippi, advocated by the great 
engineer, James B. Eads. He labored successfully for the 
formation of the Mississippi Rjlver Commission, by which that 
I)lan was partially carried into execution. The result is that 
the waters of the mighty river are contined into narrow chan- 
nels and made to do the work of its own deepening and im- 
provement. 

The farmer and the planter in the alluvial lands of the Lower 
Mississippi rise up and call his name blessed for iheir j)artial 
immunity from devastating tioods. 

With broad and comprehensive view, he seized on the oppor- 
tunity, offered by the generosity of Mr. Paul Tulane, to found 
Tulane University, in the city of New Orleans. That Univer- 
sity is an iniiierishable monument of his sagacity and his use- 
fulness. 

He conceived the purpose of establishing a university in his 
State, through the instrumentality of which she could rise from 
her ashes. 

He knew that the surest foundation for the success and per- 
petuity of republican institutions is a cultivated knowledge of 
the genius and spirit of our Constitution. He knew that the 
lost prestige of tlie South could only be recovered through the 
enlightened braiu and the cultured morality and tlie indomi- 
table energy of its citizens. 

He knew that her sons were endowed with quick intellects 
and souud hearts; he knew that poverty had made them in- 
dustrious, and God and nature had made them honest. He 



64 Af/dress oj Mr. ( 'affcry.^ of Loiiisiai/a, on the 

kuew therefore that thevivifyiug touch of learning and knowl- 
edge would bring out the latent ])owers of the great common- 
wealths of the South, devasted by war and scourged by recon- 
struction. 

The institution, founded largely through his efforts to mold 
into enduring shape the beneficence of Mr. Tulaue, realizes his 
fondest hopes. In science, in art, in the departments of law 
and medicine, it challenges favorable comparison with any 
university in the United States. There the j'outh from all 
over the South, at moderate expense, can lay the foundation 
for future usefulness. There the strength, the courage, the 
learning, and the skill may be acquired which will make the 
waste places within her borders " bloom and blossom as the 
rose." 

There the future statesman may be formed who, with Web- 
sterian power and eloquence, may swell patriotic hearts with 
the excellence, the strength, the elasticity, and the durability 
of the Constitution of our common country. There the mer- 
chant ijrince may be taught those lessons of finance and trade 
which will fill his argosies with the golden stores of tlie ancient 
empire of Genghis Khan. 

And there the great engineer may be taught wlm will give 
to science an easy and cheap method of piercsing the Isthmus 
of Darien and open a channel fortlie coniinerce of tlie civilized 
globe. 

Tulaiie University will hold in grateful reiiifiiihrance tlie 
name of RANDALL Lee Gibson. 

It is needless for ine to say to Senators wlio served witli 
Senator Gibson that he was formed on broad lines; that his 
jiatriotism embraced every section and every interest, and that 
he constantlj' looked to our simple yet complex Constitution, 
and the laws and treaties madi- in pursuance thereof, as the 
|iaram(Mint law of tht^ land. 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. ()5 

lu liis native soil of Kentucky he sleeps hj- tlie side of his 
beloved wife. His adopted State, Louisiana, claims the piivi- 
lege of placing garlands of affection and reverence on his grave. 

Mr. President, I move the adoption of the resolutions. 

The resolutions were unanimously agreed to ; and (at 7 o'clock 
and 25 minutes i). m.) the Senate adjourned until to-morrow, 
Thursday, March 2, 1893, at 11 o'clock a. m. 
S. Mis. 178 5 



EULOGIES IN THE HOUSE OF REPRE- 
SENTATIVES. 



Friday, March 3, 1893. 

The resolutious adopted by the Senate in honor of Senator 
Gibson having been comniiiuicated to the House of liepresent- 
atives upon the hist day of the Congress extended eulogies 
could not then be delivered. 

Mr. Meyer said : 

Mr. Speaker: The few remaining liours of this Congress 
and the pressure upon it for action upon important public 
measures renders it impracticable to devote now a sufficient 
time for the members of this House to pay appropriate and 
proper tribute to the memory of the late Senator Gibson. 

It is the purpose of the Louisiana delegation in tlie Fifty- 
third Congress, at a suitable period during the nest session, 
to ask that the resolutions now presented by the Senate be 
again called up and the members of that body, of which our 
distinguished and lameuted colleague would still have formed 
a part had not death suimiioned him from us, will have oppor- 
tunity to add the expression of their sentiments and sorrow 
to the eloquent eulogiums already pronounced by Ins brethren 
of the United States Senate. 



Saturday, Ajitil 21, 1894. 
The Speaker. There is a special order set apart for 2 o'clock 
to-day. It wants but live minutes of that hour, and, without 
objection, the Chair will submit tlie special order now, instead 
of waiting until that time. 

f!6 



Euolgj'es in the House of Representatives. 67 

The Cleik read as follows: 

Jifsolitt}, That Saturday, the 7th day of April, beujiuuiug at 2 o'clock 
p. ni., be set apart for eulogies on the late Randall L. Gibson. 

Mr. Meyer. Mr. Spealcer, I dffer the resolutions wliieh I 
send to the Clerk's desk. 

The resolutions were read, as follows: 

Resolved, That the business of the House be now suspendi'il, that opjiov- 
tuuity may he given for triliutes to tlie memory of the Hon. Ranilill Lee 
Gibson, lately a Senator and fonnerly a Representative from the State 
of Louisiana. 

Resolved, That the Clerk be instructed to send a copy of these resolu- 
tions to the family of the deceased. 

Resolnil, That as a i)articular mark of res]>ect to the memory of the 
deceased, and in recognition of his eminent al)ilitie8 as a distinguished 
public servant, the House, .at the conclusion of these memorial proceed- 
ings, shall stand adjourned. 

The resolutions were agreed to. 



68 Address of Mr. M<ycr, of Lotiisiann^ on the 



Address of Mr. Meyer, of Louisiana. 

Mr. Speaker: A great Aiiie.i'i(-aii ])()et has said: 

Were a star quenched on high, 

For ages would its light, 
Still traveling downward from the sky, 

Shine on our mortal sight. 
So wiieu a great man dies, 

For years beyond our ken 
The light he leaves hehind him lies 

Upon the patlis of men. 

Mr. Speaker, it is an honored usage of this body and of the 
.issociate branch of Ootigress th;it on the occasion of tlie death 
of one of its iiieiiibers we sliall turn aside from the cares and 
activities of our ordinary duties to pay sucli tribute of respect 
as may be due to the memory of the deceased. I ask this 
House to-day to unite with me in this honor to tlie memory of 
one wlio sat here as a Ivei)resentative irom tiie State of Lou- 
isiana for four successive teiins, and in the Senate of tlie 
United States from March, 1883, till the time of his death in 
December, 1892, tilling these, as he did all the trusts of a long 
and varied career, with an earnestness, conscientiousness, 
and power that made him indeed a man among men. 

Randall Lke (tIBSOn sprang from Revolutionary stock, 
and, like many of our notable men, the antecedents of his fam- 
ily and his early studies of the Revolutionary epoch exerted a 
marked impress upon his character, opinions, and career. 
John Gibson, tlie first immigrant of the family, came from 
iOngland in 170(5 with one sister and several brothers and 
settled near the lower Rappahannock, in Virginia. Subse- 
quently they removed to the vicinity of Sandy lihiff. on the 



Life and Chciraclcr of Randall Lt'c Gibson. tJ9 

Great I'edee River, iu Soutli Carolina. Tliey aud their kin- 
dred, the Murfees, Sauuders, Harrisons, and others, warmly 
espoused the c;mse of the Colonies and upheld it all through 
those long, weary years, till when "black and smoking ruins" 
had taken the place of once ])rosperous and joyous habitations 
the patriots of South Carolina entered upon their rich inherit- 
ance of freedom. 

After the struggle closed the grandfather of Eandall 
Gibson, bearing the same name as his, followed the westward 
current of American progress and settled iu the State of Mis- 
sissippi, where he became a wealthy planter. His home, termed 
Oakley, in Warren County, Miss., was noted for its hospitality. 
His connections and descendants embrace many of the best 
known names in the Southwest. This grandfather of Senator 
GiissoN is said to have built the ttrst church and founded the 
first institution of learning in the Mississippi Valley, titly 
named .Tefferscm College. His wife, Harriet McKiuley, was 
the daughter of .Jolin McKiuley and Mary (Connelly, both 
natives of Ireland. McKiuley was an officer of the Virginia 
line iu the Revolution, ami died in the service of the Common 
wealth in 1782. 

Tobias Gibson, son of Randall Gibson, of Mississippi, and 
father of RANDALL Lee Gibson, of Louisiana, settled iu Terre 
Bonne Parish of our State, where he became one of the wealth- 
iest and most induential sugar-planters in that country. He 
was a warm personal and political friend of Henry Clay, and 
his summer residence at Lexington was a headcpiarters for 
those wlio supported the great American orator and statesman. 
Tobias (xilisou married Louisiana, the daughter of Colonel 
Nathaniel Hart, of Si)ring Hill, Woodford County, Ky. Her 
mother came from the Preston stock of Virginia, aud he him- 
self was nearly allied to Tiiomas Hart Benton aud Mrs. Henry 
Clay. S])ring Hill was one of those great Southern homes and 



70 Address of Mr. Meyer ^ of Louisiana., on the 

lioiisi'liolds wlii(!li belong to our past history, and were the 
products of a civilizatiou no longer ours indeed, but yet even 
now redolent of memories of refinement, culture, manly breed- 
ing, courage, honor, and unstinted hospitality, the nurseries 
of a type of character in men and women that need not slinnk 
from comparison with any other in the world or in all history. 
It was in this typical Southern house that Ranball IjEE 
Gibson was born September 10, 1832. There and at Lexing- 
ton, Ky., he passed much of his boyliood. Here was his 
earliest schooling in books, and here also his other education 
of country life, with the benign intluences of home, family. 
forest, and field. There was for liim a like healthy training at 
his father's plantation in Louisiana. In 1819 he went to Yale 
College, where he took liigh rank ;ind graduated four years 
later with special distinction. There were formed some of the 
most cherished and enduring friendships of his life. He always 
spoke of Yale with proud and aft'ectiouate retrosi)ect. ills 
friends at Tale were dear to him always. Of this period of 
his life the late distinguished Judge Edward C Billings, his 
classmate and close friend, said : 

I wish I could fully deliueatb Randall Lkb Gih.son :is he stood uj) ami 
delivered the class oration in .June, 1853, at Yale College. In his presenci^ 
and appearance were united that which w.as comely and fas(nnating in the 
beauty of youth and scholarly in speech and that which was couimandiug 
in intellect, and above all the impressiveness and dignity of an earnest 
purpose to do well his part, not alone because it w.as to be connected with 
himself, l)ut also because he appreciated and en.ioyed everything that was 
well doni'. 

Gibson studied law in New Orleans and graduated at the 
University of Louisiana in 18.5.5. He then went abroad and 
spent three years in Europe. This travel was not for him a jour- 
ney of idleness and pleasure, as it is with many. He had l>een 
a close and careful student and a. diligent reader. His days 
in Europe were only a ])a,rtof a liberal education. He studied 



Life and Cliaracter of Randall Lee Gibson. 71 

in Berliu, and visited liussia and otLer countries, includinjr 
Spain, wliei-e he spent six mouths at the American legation. 
In hiter life he frequently revisiteil Europe with his wife, but 
he traveled mainly for health and instruction. He studied and 
observed, gathering up stores for future use. He was never 
an idle man, aiul what he dirt was with a high and serious pur- 
pose in life. 

On his retuiu to America this young man, so well educated 
and equipped, nviturally followed his father's steps and became 
a sugar-planter. Country life in the South possesses great 
attractions even for those most richly educated and endowed. 
There were books, horses, hunting, the duties of the planta- 
tion, the kind and just government of those jdaced under him 
by the ordination of Divine Providence, abundant leisure and 
opj>ortunities for study and research, and a society founded 
upon the sentiment of honor, respect for law, and reverence 
for women. There was nothing in the fascination of the Old 
World or of cities to weaii him from this plantation life, which 
had bred Washington, Jefferson, Calhoun, and a host of wor- 
thies, and now welcomed to its charmed circle and happiest 
influences this accomplished and scholarly young recruit. 

Even then he took a i)artial interest in politics, his mind 
leaning to State rights and Democratic opinions. It was, how- 
ever, his nature to do well whatever he had in hand, and the 
work of a sugar plantation, its economies, methods, and forces, 
he then mastered so thoroughly that when in years long after- 
wards he came to deal with this great interest as a representa- 
tive in Congress, the fullness and precision of his knowledge 
made him easily the tirst in the work of the committee and of 
the House, and a bulwark to the people who, struggling for a 
living, rested on his strong arm and wise guidance. At that 
epoch, so early as it now seems to us, Louisiana blossomed as 
the rose. The harvest .season in the parishes came to a 



72 Addi'L'ss of Mr. .]hyii\ of Louisiana, on the- 

weiilthy, ;i i)rospe,rous, and a. liappy jxjpulation. White and 
black, living in a repose and i»ea('.e almost Arcadian, liardly 
realized tliat on the liorizon there hung the cloud whicli was 
destined soon to blacken the fair face of all that bright, sunny 
land. 

Two short years i>assed and our young planter found him- 
self bound in honor and duty to leave the happy home and 
peaceful avocations to which his tastes and education naturally 
conducted him, and to take his part in the stern realities of 
war. His native land had been invaded; tlie land ol' his youth, 
his home, his kindred, and all that he held dear and sacred 
was in ])eril. Of the Justice of the cause of the South — that 
her struggle was purely defensive, however he might deplore 
the collision of the warring sections — he could feel no doubt. 
Nor could he doubt as to his duty. It was not a time for any 
to hold back. Young and ardent as he was, his thoughtful 
temperament and wise study of history could not fail to impress 
him with the solemn character of the ordeal of battle. He 
weighed all the risks to life and fortune, and to the State, but 
these thoughts to so higli a nature as his only nerved and 
strengthened his ])urp()se. 

Sectional passion, with thirty years of cessation of the con- 
flicts of hostile armies, have given place to a broader and 
more generous feeling and to a yearning for a peace without 
recriminations or prejudice against any section ; but stronger 
than this wise sentiment we find a disposition to do honor to 
the manhood and courage of those who in eitlier army periled 
their lives for their convictions. The list of tlie heroes of the 
civil war is beginning to be regarded as a common heritage oi 
honor. Men differ and will continue to differ as to the origin 
and causes of this great strife, l)ut the discussion is historical, 
and does not involve present political issues. 

In the roll of honor of which I speak, few stand higher than 



Li/c and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 73 

Gibson, and none more worthy. His record from first to last 
is that of duty ■well performed. The soldiers in my hearing' 
know that there can be no higher jjraisc than this, lie lacked 
unfortunately the vigorous physique wliich enable many men 
to withstand the hardships and exposure of camj) life, the 
i-igors of the wintry .storm, the marcli, and the many trials of 
battle. There were ii(» winter cpiarttM-s with fires, blankets, 
clothing, and ))rovisions for the Confederate forces. The strain 
was incessant. It was amid such hardships and exposure near 
Corinth in 18(52 that this delicately nurtured younj^ man first 
developed that terrible malady — heieditary gout — which in 
after years .so often paralyzed his best thoughts and energies 
and tortured his frame to the infirmity which would have 
driven a common man to seek rei)Ose. 

The intellect and the will triumphed over the body, and for 
over thirty years, in war and in peace, he braced himself to per 
form the duties of life. He was not an educated soldier, but 
he soon made liim.self a thorougli one, and as such won the 
confidence of his troops and the conimendatioii of his superior 
otlicers. Entering the Southern army as a i)rivate.in the ranks, 
he was soon appointed to be a captain of the First Louisiana 
Artillery, and was stationed at Fort .lack.son, below Xew 
Orleans. Not long afterwards he was elected colonel of the 
Thirteenth Louisiana Infantry. At Shiloh, before the battle, 
his regiment was assigned to j)icket duty with three others, 
and all, as it clianced, were witliout a brigadier. By common 
consent this honor was conferred upon him, and this brigade, 
thus led by Uibson, made a special re|)utation for heroism in 
those two days of fierce slaiigliter, stubborn endurance, and 
wonderful valor. 

Hardly any brigade was more severely tried and tested in 
that battlefield than the regiments thus hastily thrown 
together under a new commander, and no man but one of rare 



74 .Idiiress of Mr. Meyer, of f.ouhinun, on the 

force i-ould tliiis liave evolvt^d frdiii raw troops the steadiness 
and work of veterans. The service thus performed was the 
prehide to a long and lionorable career. Gibson was present 
in the battles of I'crryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, 
Missiouaiy liidge, and other Helds, and in the campaigns of 
1802, 1S(>3, and 1804 of the Western army. One-third of his 
brigade was killed and wounded at Murfreesboro. He was 
trusted and commended by Polk, Hardee, John C. Breckin- 
ridge, Cheatham, Dan Adams, Maury, Preston, Stephen D, 
Lee, Richard Taylor, Joseph E. Johnston, and Hood. 

General H. 1). Clayton, in his report of the battle of Joues- 
boro, fought on 31st August, 18(i4, says that Brigadier- Gen- 
eral Gibson, seizing the colors of one of his regiments, dashed 
to the front and to the very works of the enemy. The brigade 
lost there one-half of its members. General Stephen D. Lee 
makes special mention of the gallant crossing of the Tennessee 
Kiver near Florence, Ala., by Gibson and his brigade. When 
Hood's army was defeated at Nashville by Thomas, it fell to 
the lot of this brigade to check the jirogress of the enemy near 
Overton Hill under the immediate eye of General Lee. (Gen- 
eral Hood gives him the highest praise. He says: 

General Gibson, wlio evinced couspicuous gallantry and aliility in the 
handling of his troops, succeeded, in concert with Clayton, in checking and 
staying the first and most dangerous shock, whicli always follows imme- 
diately after a rout. 

Again, he says that Gibson's brigade and McKinzie's bat- 
tery of Fenner's battalion acted as " rear guard of the rear 
guard." Here we have a soldierly character and force develop- 
ing itself and shining the more brightly as calamity thickened 
and the ordeal became more difficult with great and greater 
odds and each hour bringing a lessening hope of final victory. 
Other work, however, leniained to be performed. Wlien (ien- 
eral Canbv with a heavy force moved against Mobile, General 



Life and Character of Ramiall Lee Gibson. 75 

Gibson was detached by General Maury from his main army 
with a few less than 2,(MK) men and ordered to hold Spanish 
Fort on the east side of Mobile Bay. For more than two 
weeks, amid incessant tightinfj, he maintained his position in 
the intrenchments of these works against a force estimated to 
be 20, 000 stroiij;', aided by seventy-tive cannon and a large 
fleet, inflicted a large loss upon his assailants, and finally by 
a well-conducted retreat saved nearly all his command except 
those already killed or too severely wounded to be withdrawn. 
These operations at Mobile Bay were tlie last great struggle 
of the war. General Richard Taylor, in recognition of (Jib 
son's services, enlarged his command, but this long and dread- 
ful conflict of the two sections came to a close, and was terini 
nated by surrender of the Confederate armies. General Gib- 
son's parting address to his troops was worthy of him and of 
them. He said: 

As soldiers, you have been among the bravest ami most steadfast. As 
citizens, be law-abiding, peaceful, and industrious. 

This closing sentence furnishes the key to his political action 
and aims from ISii.") till the hotir of his death. 

Like nearly all his associates, General GiB.soN found himself 
at the close of the war ruined in fortune. His father's splendid 
sugar estate in Terre Bonne was a wreck. To restore it witliout 
ample capital and reliable, efficient labor was impossible. He 
therefore settled in New Orleans and devoted himself to the 
practice of the law. His labors were crowned with unusual 
and immediate success, for few possessed higher adaptation to 
the requirements of the bar. It was at this time of his life, in 
1867, that he met and married Miss Mary Montgomery, the 
charming and accomplislied woman who lent such exquisite 
grace to his household and brought to him a tenderness and 
devotion tliat made her indeed a ministering angel. It was 
her fate to be summoned before he was called away, but not 



7() .-Address of Mr. Meyer, of Louisiana ^ on the 

until iiiaii^N years of iiiuliial liappiiit'ss liail lilcsscd tlieiii both 
and .streiij;tli('iie(l liiiii to meet the increased cares and Inudcns 
III' a |>iil)lic career and to hear up under the malady widch tor 
long years impeded his licst endeavors. 

Hardly any man in Ijouisiaiia was better (jualifled for a Con- 
gressional career at the close of the civil war than Randall 
Gibson, but the way was not open for him oi- for any repre- 
sentative man of Louisiana till long afterwards. To recall 
the epoch now seems like reviving a painful dream. The State 
of Louisiana was fa.st bound in misery and chains. It was 
held in the iron grasp of an alien rule under which neither its 
intelligence nor property had a voice. The State liad been 
left by the war literally a wreck and a desolation. 

The work of rebuilding the waste places, the restoration of 
paralyzed industries, the reorganization of society, education, 
and the like would have been a herculean task under the best 
ausijices and by the best of men, but nothing was done to 
evoke the best forces, and, on the contrary, everything to 
wound, to opjiress. and to retard tiie healthful process of 
recovery. It was not until 1872 that Randall Gibson could 
be elected to this House, and even then he was not admitted. 
In 1874 he was (chosen by the First district of Louisiana, and 
took his seat in December, 1875, as a member of the Forty- 
fourth Congress. The House was full of strong men. Among 
its members were Kerr. Sayler. Blackburn. Cox, Gartield, 
Holman, Lamar, Llaine, Morrison, Randall, Tucker, Alex. H. 
Stephens, and Gibson's gifted colleague, E. John Ellis, of 
Louisiana. 

But if the actors on the stage were able and brilliant, the 
themes were even greater. Tarty jcission ran high. The 
feelings of the war had only slightly subsided. The Southern 
States were only slowly and ]iainfiilly regaining their eiiuality 
in the Cnion. Three of the numbei'. inelniling LouisiaTia, were 



Life iDid Character of Randall Lcc Gibson. 77 

yet struggling for home rule, the rule of the taxpayer, and lor 
a staple and economical government suited to an iiiijKiverislied 
people, for the right to work and a(5cuiiuilate free from wanton 
spoliation. There were strong prejudices to be disarmed, the 
prejudices of a powerful party tliat had long held the JTational 
Government. 

The situation was fompli('ated by the pending of a lieated 
Presidential struggle which threatened the country with a 
civil war, not between sections but nearly balanced parties. 
When was there ever a con<lition that imposed graver duties 
and responsibilities on a reiu-eseutative of Louisiana or 
required more of wisdom, Judgment, strategy, .self-control. 
(li])lomatic tact, and resources than this? and yet it is not too 
mucli to say that Representative G1B8ON proved himself ecpial 
to the occasion. He bad had no previous legislative experi 
eiice, but his education and studies were profound, and he soon 
jiroved himself a natural parliamentarian and man of affairs. 

At the outset of his legislative career General Gibson, 
whose aim was to avoid violent controver.sies, and by appeals 
to reiison of both ])arties to accomplish results for the general 
good, found himself forced to meet repeated assaults upon his 
State and constituents involving their good name and conduct. 
One of his earliest speeches in Congress was a vindication of 
Louisiaiui in connection with the election of 187(! for President 
and State ofticers, and thus it became necessary to review the 
work of the famous returning board. He discharged this 
unpleasant duty with frankness and plain speech, but he put 
the cause of his State with a spirit of justice, moderation, and 
fairness that could not fail to impress the House and public 
opinion. He spoke from the standpoint of a national and con- 
servative statesman, accei>ting the logic of events and the 
results of the war so disastrous to the South, accepting enum- 
ci])ation and the e(inal jiolitical rights of the two races as a 



78 Address of Mr. Meyer, of Louis/ami, mi the 

basis of action, (lisc.luiiiiing sectionalism, deprecating it, and 
pleading for i)eace and justice to Ills people. He never de- 
parted from this keynote of policy throughout his career, not 
even in denouncing bayonet rule and the use of troops at the 
polls. 

It was this admirable temper and national spirit, joined to 
his high character and rare power in personal intercourse with 
men, that enabled him to appeal successfully to President 
Grant at the most critical moment in the history of Louisiana, 
and to stay the effort that was made to induce President Grant 
to employ the army to crush out the rightful government of 
the State. The struggle of the friends of the Packard gov- 
ernment to win General Grant in this juncture was incessant. 
The strongest influence wielded against them, as tliey well 
recognized, was that of Representative GiissoN. Both un<ler 
the administration of President Grant and President Hayes 
there were men who rendered most invaluable service, but 
there is no one to whom Loui>i;ina is more deeply indebted for 
her linal deliverance than Gibson. He had the respect of 
President Hayes, who freely consulted him. There was nothing 
loud or ostentatious in this great service. Like most of the 
l)otent work in ]iublic life, it was rendered quietly, Init it was 
none the less effective. Then once more with the light of hope 
upon their brows the sons of Louisiana began to plant, to sow, 
and to reap. Anarchy, misrule, and desjjair gave place to order 
and progress. 

But aside from all sentimental questions and the transcend- 
ent issue of local self-government, and both before and after its 
linal adjudication, the most difficult duties devolved upon a 
representative of Louisiiina. These were not i)arty questions, 
but they were not less diHicult of adjustment and demnnded 
the most unwearied and skillful devotion. Among the most 
impoitant of these issues wiiieh required (ienenil (liBsoN'scon 



Life and CharaLler of Randall Lee Gibson. 79 

staut care from tlie day he entered this House during his four 
terms of service and in the Senate after he entered tliat body 
in .March, 1883, were tlie i)rotectiou of the great sugar inter- 
est of Louisiana and the (lucstiun of the iiiiijrt)vement of the 
Mississippi River. liotli were vital to Louisiana and important 
to the whole T'nion. But lie thoroughly understood them, and 
in knowledge of each he had hardly a i)eer in either branch of 
Congress. To detail the successive steps of his labors on these 
questions would be to repeat their history for a series of years. 
1 can barely glance at a work so familiar to his contemporaries 
in Congress. 

The sugar industry of Louisiana before the civil war had 
grown to large proportions and supplied oue-half of the Ameri- 
can coiisuni])tion. By the havoc of war and emancii)ation it 
had been reduced to almost nothing, but was now gradually 
expanding. Upon its maintenance and development depended 
the subsistence and prosi)erity of nearly half of the people of 
the State, but this development it was vain to exi)ect under 
hostile tariffs. All through the earlier period of American his- 
tory down to a recent date the propriety and necessity of the 
duty upon sugar had been questioned by no party or states- 
man. It was a pronnnent feature in every tariff for a hundred 
years. But soon after General (tIBSON took his place on the 
Ways and Means Committee in the Forty-fifth Congress he 
found himself confronted with measures involving changes in 
the revenue laws. 

The wisdom and lessons of the past were only partially 
remembered, and this interest so important to his State was 
imperiled by repeated assaults and propositions which, if car- 
ried, would have wrought a fresh desolation in Louisiana. He 
was a friend to the policy of a revenue tarilf and moderate 
duties, for he had been a wise student of economic science, but 
for that very reason he demanded a fair revenue duty on sugar. 



80 Address of Mr. A/tyer, of Louisiana, on the 

He was uot willing to see Louisiaua sacrificed to Ibster tlif 
interests of Cuba, Jamaica, or any otlier country. As fai- back as 
187() he opposed the passage of the legislation devised to carry 
out the Hawaiian reciprocity treaty, which he deemed Injuiious 
to American interests. His labors for the sugar industry in the 
committee, in speeches on the floor, and with individual mem- 
bers of both parties engrossed much of his time and energies. 
He had a perfect knowledge of the mniierous details and intri- 
cacies of these duties, and he knew the history of tlie contest 
and the past legislation. He had the skill to grasp a difficult 
situation, to combine favors and influences, to judge what 
could be done and how to do it; how much to yield and how 
muc-ii he cimld fairly demand. jS'o cunning device of unttiendly 
interests esiiaped his watchful vigilance. He was always on 
guard anil always at the front. He was the recognized leader 
of this interest in Congress every day and hour of his service, 
but it was as a public officer and not as a planter to be per- 
sonally benefited; for he never had the capital to restore his 
old plantation. The final adoption of the polariscope test was 
largely due to his early and constant advocacy of its merits 
and necessity to protect the revenue and prevent fraud. The 
■whole subject of this industry was to Congress a new discus- 
sion, but he illuminated it with a flood of light. 

Not less valuable were General Gibson's wise .services in 
respect to the legislation happily enacted by Congress to har- 
ness tlie forces of that mighty current well termed tlie "Father 
of Waters," to make it the great artery of a vast and increas- 
ing commerce, to ])reveut its ravages and destructive floods. 
and to make it an ally to civilization and industry, a blessing 
to man instead of a curse. The genius of Captain James B. 
Eads had already pointed out the way to oi)en the closed mouth 
of the Mississippi, :nid the liberal hand of Congress rcspond- 
in<;- to the call of tlie ijrcMt v;dlc\- li;id pidvidcd the means 



Life and Charncirr of RnndaU Lee Gibson. SI 

One of Representative Gibson's earliest steps in Gongiess was 
to aid in supplementing this legislation liy modifications wliicli 
enabled Eads to contiiine his work, to expedite it, and push it 
forward till, to use the words of Gibson himself, "the jetties 
were a perfect success." But the main ])roblem, namely, the 
treatment of the great river from Cairo, oi- indeed from its liead 
waters to the Gulf, i-emained to be solved. 

The most eminent hydraulic- engineers of the country had 
made its forces and phenomena a study and had differed as to 
the remedy to be applied. The best thoughts of the best minds 
of the South and West in Congress at this time were exercised 
upon the two great questions: first, what plan of treatment 
for the river should be adopted; and next, supposing some 
mode to be preferred, how could Congress be induced to grant 
the amijle means needed to carry out the plan. For a long 
period efforts had been made to induce Congress to rebuild the 
levees, but all these efforts had failed. Cai)tain Eads had for 
years insisted on tlie policy of concentiation of tlie waters and 
obtaining a uiiif(n'm width for the river; but there were so 
many conflicting opinions and i)iaiisthat it seemed vain to ask 
Congress to adopt any one of IIkmii. 

Amid all this confusion of counsels it was the happy concep- 
tion of General Gibson to jjropose a scientific commission, to 
be com]>osed of the ablest men engaged in the public service 
and in private life, who should exannne the river with a view 
to tlie improvement of its navigation, the jjrevention of floods, 
and the promotion of c.omiiicice, and after considering tlie dif- 
ferent plans anil methods suggested to report to the Secretary 
of War a i)lan of com])rehensive improvement. It was this 
])lan of a commission that was finally adopted by Congress, 
and to it the country is indebted for tlic most beneficent results 
already accomplished and for the assured prospect of final 
realization of one of the greatest works of modern civilization. 
S. Mis. 178 (i 



82 Ad<//Tss oj Mr. A/eyfr, of Louisiana^ on llic 

Yet this wise law was not passed until after years ot'persistinit 
struggle by its friends. 

Out of tbe many able and zealous friends of this jiolicy in 
Congress from all sections of tiie country who contributed to 
its adoption and maintenance, Kepresentative Gibson was 
nu)st conspicuous by the earnestness, fullness of inforniatuju, 
and ])ower whicli he lirought to the discussion, and by the 
ceaseless vigilauee and stiategy with wlach he guarded the 
liiver Commission against all attempts to impair its powers 
and usefulness. The plan of treatment for the river adopted 
by the Commission was mainly the one advocated by Captain 
Eads and in which General Gibson fully believed. The udud 
in Congress which expounded and defended the plan of the 
Commission and the arm which upheld it, P^ads always recog- 
nized as Gibson's. The names of both men are linked insep- 
arably with this great measure. IIow' eloquently does it con- 
trast with the fruitless strifes and bitter phrases of lesser 
minds? Who shall set bounds to its blessings or put too high 
a value on the i>atriotism of those who carried it on to its high 
consummation \ 

I need not review tlic work of General Gibson on other ques- 
tions as a Kepresentative and a Senator. The location of the 
mint at New Orleans, the establishment of closer commercial 
relations with ^Mexico and South .Vmerica, the general work of 
river and harbor inq>rovenient, the reforinalion of the tariff, 
(piestions of the currency, the educational bill, the work of the 
Agricultural Bureau, the forfeiture of the land grant of the 
Backbone Railroad Company — these and many other topics 
were the objects of his care. He labored unsuccessfully to 
j/curtail the secret sessions of the Senate and to repeal the 
objectionable statute which disfranchises all ex-Confederates 
for positions in the Federal Artny. 

lie never spoke for ?iiere display. No small i)art of the most 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 8;} 

valuable work of a Representative is doue in committee or in 
liersonal intercourse with bis associates or with the President 
and heads of Departments. General Gibson's iutlueuce in all 
these directions was unusual. He neglected none of the lion 
orable instrumentalities essential to success. He had the con- 
fidence and resiiect of every President from Grant to the pres- 
ent occupant of the chair. His personal relations with such 
eminent men as Beck, ^lorrison, Kandall, Carlisle, Bayard, 
Lamar, Tilden, Andrew White, Evarts, Sherman, Garfield, 
Hayes, Cameron, and i'.laiiic were such as few enjoyed. Tlie 
value to his people of such relations of confidence is too 
obvious to be insisted on. 

Randall Gibson was an educated man and a scholar. He 
took the deepest interest in every scheme for educating' the 
youth of the South, for none knew better than he the value of 
such education and how greatly the opportunities for accjuir- 
ing it had been cut off by the waste of the war and the wide- 
spread poverty of the people. It came to him, therefore, like 
a benediction when Paul Tulane, then living at Princeton, X. v 
J., but a former resident of New Orleans, sought bis aid and 
counsel in carrying into practical eflect his n(jble and benevo- 
lent plan of making a large donation for the "encouragement 
of iutellectual, moral, and industrial education among the 
white young persons of the city of Xew Orleans." Mr. Tulane 
could not have found a wiser or more sympathetic adviser than 
Randall Gibson. He formnlated the method and phin on 
which the donation was to be made and detiiied the ])uri)ose 
to which it was to be applied. 

As has been said by one wiio well knew wliereof lie spoke: 

He selected the men whom Mi-. Tulane associated with himself as the 
trustees of his sacred gift. As president of the admiuistration. he im- 
piessed ou each and every one of them his own hit;h sense of the gravity 
of the functions with which they were cliarged. He was the electric cord 



84 .Iddress of Mr. Meyer, nf Louisiniia, on the 

ftliich coiiueeted tliiMii directly with Paul Tulune, and maiutaiued that 
perfect harmony and coulideuce between them which led to the constant 
enlargement of his bounty. His wisdom selected the distinguished man 
who as president of the university has organized its splendid faculty, has 
shaped its course of study, has planned its methods and degrees, and has 
in all respects conducted its aftairs with such signal sagacity and success. 

Ill a word, the character and intellect of Randall Gibson 
are thoroughly impressed upon this immiticeiit loundatioa of 
the noble philanthropist. This institution was the object of 
General Gibson's love and solicitude even to his latest breath. 

Early in November, 18!t2, Senator Gibson, theu in New 
Orletiiis, was seized with a recurrence of the malady which had 
so many years preyed upon him. His physician ordered him 
to the Hot Springs of Arkansas, where on a fi inner occasion 
he had found much benefit. He went there under the care of 
a devoted friend, and at first lie seemed to improve. But tliis 
was only iHusory. His disea.se had approached nearer and 
nearer tlie citadel of life. His jiowers of resistance had waned 
till notiiing was left but to yield with composure and courage 
to the last dread summons. He passed away on the 15th of 
December, 1892, surrounded by those whom of the living lie 
loved best. Death did not find him nnprejiaied. His dear 
wife, whose name in his last inoments was so often ou his lips, 
had preceded him years before to the better land. He had 
retilized for many months how frail was his tenure of life, and 
ht! had made calmly till liis ai rtingemeiits for his Ittst jouiiiey. 
The love tiiid ciire of his surviving children were much indeed 
to live for; but his public ctireer w;ts well rounded tiiid com- 
plete. It lacked nothing in its perfect symmetry. 

Hardly any man of our day had had a better or higlier con- 
ception of sttitesmanship. He was tilwiiys a student of aftairs, 
of history, of religion, morals, and condiu-t. Everything 
rehiting to the foundations of government, tiud esjiecittlly our 
own Government, lie htid stuilied. He was familiar witli 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 85 

aiicieut :uul modern history, with tlic lives and writings of 
Wasbiugtun, Jelferson. Ilaniilton, and all the oreat men of 
the Republic, and witli wliat may be called the classics of 
l)olitics. Whether in debate or private intercourse he was 
ettective. As a speaker he was direct, argumeTitative, per- 
suasive. He brought to bear all the resources of legitimate 
debate; but he was careful not to wound the feelings or 
impugn the motives of liis o|)ponents. His retort miglit dis- 
arm, but left no sting. His gentleness, tact, and consideration 
for others was conspicuous in public and private life. He 
spoke well, yet he was eminently practical. He aimed in 
action not so nuich to destroy as to build up and create; in 
speech to conciliate and convince. He understood the arts of 
goverunieut, tlie necessity for compromise, and the value of 
peace with lionor. 

Hardly any man from the South of late years has .so much 
impressed himself ou legislation. In his public relations Gen- 
eral Gibson, without being repellant, bore himself usually with 
a certain degree of stateliuess and reserve. But in tlie society 
of his friends no one could be more natural, frank, engaging, 
and companionable. He enjoyed social intercourse, but no 
one was more abstemious («■ free from dissipation. He was a 
man of clear morals and speech, and was imbued with the 
profoundest respect for religion and virtue. Bigotry he had 
none. He believed in religious liberty iu the largest and best 
sense. As a friend he was kind, sympathetic, instructive; as 
a man of society, courteous aiul conciliatt)ry ; as a husband 
and father, tender, artectionate, and true. 

His life was geutle, auil tlie elemeuts 

So mix'il iu him. tliat nature might staud up 

.\n(l S!iy to all the world, "Ttus was a man!" 

If he had ambition, who shall blame him ? It was an ambi- 
tion not low. nor selfish, nor sordid. It inspired him to serve 



86 Add7-€ss of Mr. Meyer, of Louisiana, on the 

liis State and tlie Union, to lielp to build uji an iiiipoveiislied 
and tsufferiug section, and to increase the happiness and prog- 
ress of mankind. It is by such generous aspirations that 
humanity advances to successive triumplis and states become 
great and opulent. 

A man will sometimes unconsciously reveal his own nature 
in describing another's. We find a broad light cast upon the 
formative influences that shaped the character of our departetl 
ft'iend in his own eulogy ui)on the late Thomas H. Herndou, of 
Alabama. Said he: 

As a general rule, juiblic meu are the logical expressious of the tone and 
temper, the outgrowth of the local conditions and habits and culture and 
institutions, of the people, and indicate their characteristics and qualities 
as surely as certain plants and fruits and trees do particular climates. 
His family [Mr. Herndon's] had emigrated from Fredericksburg, a part 
of the Old Domiuiim which had been prolific in meu celebrated for all the 
virtues that adorn human nature, as well as j)()lished manners and intel- 
lectual accomplishments. They belonged to the country people of Vir- 
ginia who have given to the world names that command its admiration 
and homage. > • * Inheriting traditions so elevating and represent- 
ing a ])eople themselves intelligent, brave, and virtuous, how couhl he 
prevaricate, or attempt to deceive or descend to subterfuge, or i)lay the 
demagogue, or betray any trust, or fail of duty anywhere, or his name be 
less than it was — the synonym for honor. 

On another occasion we And him laying a. flower upon the 
grave of a departed colleague, Michael Hahn, of Louisiana. 
He cited a passage taken from Festus by Mr. Halin in a pub 
lished address, and said lie doubted not that the uoble senti- 
ments therein exjiressed found a lodgment in his memory 
because liis heart beat res))()nsive to them, and that tliey 
inspired the aspirations of his life. Tliese words match well 
and fitly the soul and aims of liiin of whom we sjieak to-day: 

Life is more than breath and the ipiicU round of 1)1 1: 

It is a great si)irit and a busy heart. 

The coward and the small in soul scarce do live. 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 87 

One generous feeling — one great thought — one deed 

Of goorl, ere night, would make life longer seem 

Than if each year might number a thousand days 

Spent as this is by nations of mankind. 

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; 

In feelings, not in figures on the dial. 

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives 

Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. 



Address of Mr. Bland, of Missouri. 

Mr. Speaker: I fli\st knew the late Senator Gibson as a 
member of the Forty-fourtli Congress. I believe he was elected, 
if 1 mistake not, to the Forty-third, the tirst Congress in which 
I served in this House, but did not take his seat. It wa,s during 
the Forty-fourth Congress that the great question of the coin- 
age of the standard silver dollar was first brought to the atten- 
tion of the country. Mr. Gibson, in that Congress, took an 
active part in the discussion of the currency question, and 
especially of the silver question. That Congress authorized a 
joint commission to investigate that subject, composed of three 
members on the part of the House and three on the part of the 
Senate. The House appointed General Gibson, ]\Ir. George 
Willard, of Michigan, and myself, and on the part of the Sen- 
ate the commission consisted of Mr. Jones of Nevada, Mr. 
Bogy of Missouri, and Islx. Boutwell of Massachusetts. This 
commission made au investigation of that snliject, the result 
of which is known to the country. 

I remember very well General Gibson's i)art in that com- 
mission. His scholarly .services showed that he had fully 
investigated the subject and had an uncommon grasp of the 
theory of money. Although I (littered with him in that report 
and upon the question, yet no one who knew him ever doubted 
his honesty and sincerity. 



88 Address of Mr. Henderson, of Illinois, on the 

Those who served with Geueral Gibson iu the Forty-fouith, 
Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, and Forty-seveiitli Congresses — for I 
think he was here eight years — remember well the part that 
he took in ])rocuring legislation for the opening of the Missis- 
sipi)i River to navigation, the great ability that he displayed 
in advocating the eoustrnction of the jetties, cooperating with 
that greatest of civil engineers during his life, James B. Eads. 

I can remember full well the many speeches that General 
Gibson made in advocacy of the Mississippi liiver Commis- 
sion. That was one of his great labors in this House — a labor 
which has been rewarded with great success. 

Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention to undertake to eulo- 
gize the memory of General Gibson, but simply t(» call atten- 
tion to the most prominent parts that he took as a member of 
this House. We all recognized his great abilities, his great 
zeal, his earnestness of purpose. He was a man of scholarly 
attainments, of indefatigable industry, always amiable and 
affable; at all times, in all places, and under all circumstances 
a gentleman. Peace to his ashes! 



ADDRESS OF Mr. Henderson, of Illinois. 

Mr. Speaker: The late Senator Randai.l L. Gibson, of 
Louisiana, was elected a member of the Forty-fourth Congress 
and took his seat in December, 1875, at the same time I did — 
he on tlie Democratic and I on the Kei)ublican side of the 
House. Looking over the list of niend)ers of that Congress 
to-day it will be found that but seven of all the members who 
served with Senator Gibson in the Forty-fourth Congress now 
remain in the public service as members of this body. They 
are Judge Floimaii of Indiana, Mr. Bland of Missouri, General 
Harmer of I'ennsylvsiuia, .ludge Culberson of Texas, and Mr. 
Cannon, Mr. Springer, and myself, of Illinois. 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. .Sit 

Six members who served with Senator Gibson in the House 
as members of the Forty-fourth Congress were serving with 
him in the Senate at the time of his death, and still remain 
Senators, viz, Senator Hoar of Massachusetts, Senators Frye 
and Hale of Maine, Senator Blackburn of Kentucky, Senator 
Mills of Texas, and Senator Hunton of Virginia. And so, Mr. 
Speaker, theie are to-day but seven members of this body and 
but six members of the Senate who were associated with Sena- 
tor Gibson as members of the House of Eepresentatives in the 
Forty -fourth Congress. Such are the changes among those who 
make the laws of the land. 

Many members of the Forty-fourth Congress, I trust, stiU 
survive, and are enjoying the quiet of private life, free from 
the noise and dissension of political strife, and free from the 
care and anxiety which a faithful public servant in the con- 
scientious discharge of his public duties must ever feel. Quite 
a large number, like the distinguished Senator to whose 
memtu'v we pay tribute to-day, have passed away, and are 
now safely over the other shore, where we know we must 
sooner or later join them. But Senator Gibson was not only 
a member of the Forty-fourth Congress, but was reelected and 
served as a member of the Forty-fifth, Forty-sixth, and Forty- 
seventh Congresses, and at the close of his fourth term in the 
House, having been elected a member of the Senate, he took 
his seat in that body and remained in the Senate until the day 
of his death. I can not say, Mr. Speaker, that I was at all 
intimate with Senator Gibson, either while he was a member 
of this body or after he be(-ame a Senator. But from our first 
meeting as members of the Forty-fourth Congress I had a 
pleasant acquaintance with hi in and knew him well, and he 
always impressed me as a gentleman of high character. I was 
not associated with him on any of the committees of the House 
on which he served, and it is tliere where we have the best 



90 .IMrrss of Mr. / ffiido'soii, of Illinois, on llir 

opliortuiiities, 1 hiive tlioiij;lit, ul' observing tlic better (qualities 
and real worth of members. But he was a man of ability, and 
in liis second term was made a member of tlie Committee on 
Ways and ]\Ieans, and again served as a member of that com- 
mittee in the Forty-sixth Congress. 

In the Forty-seventh Congress, the House being Eepublican, 
he was made a member of the Committee on Commerce, that 
committee then having not only its present jurisdiction, but 
also jurisdiction over rivers and harbors, and I feel entirely 
justified in saying that Senator G-insoN was an active, intelli- 
gent, and prominent member of those important committees. 
I however remember this distinguished gentleman more par- 
ticularly for the great interest he took in the imjjrovement of 
the Mississi})pi Itiver. Rei)resenting as he did, like myself, a 
district bordering on the Mississii^pi Kiver, and feeling a deep 
interest in everything relating to its improvement, as both of 
us did, we were in that way bronglit together and worked 
together for the jjermanent improvement of that great river, 
which waters one of the greatest and richest valleys in the 
world, and I am sure no one took deeper interest in all legis- 
lation relating to the ]\Iississi])pi River and its improvement 
than did the late Henator Gibson. 

Thepeopleof the Mississippi Valley and of the wliole country, 
as I believe, are greatly indebted to him for tlie legislation 
leading to the creation of the Mississippi Kiver Commission 
and the eutei-ing upon the great work of the x^ermanent improve- 
ment of the river. If he had doue nothing else, his public 
service in connection with the imi)r()vement of the Mississippi 
Eiver alone would entitle him to the gratitude and respec-t of 
the country, and most certainly to the people of the Mississippi 
Valley. 

As a native of tlie South, it was not unnatural that Senator 
Gibson should have been found a soldier in the Confederate 
service during the late war. 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. !•! 

I am uot, Mr. Speaker, siilBcieiitly familiar with liismilitary 
service t<> refer to it to-day, particularly. That he was a brave 
and gallant oflicer and served with great distiuctiou the cause 
he l>elieved to be Just there can be no (h)ubt. The tribute paid 
to his Diemory by sorrowing comrades when he was laid away 
at rest by the side of his wife, at Lexington, Ky., was touch- 
iugly beautiful, and showed that his memory was revered not 
only by them, but by the multitude who had assembled to 
honor the departed citizen, soldier, and Senator. 

!Mr. Speaker, it was with deep regret I heard of the deatli of 
Senator Gibson; I followed his remains to their last resting 
place with sadness and sorrow. He was a pleasant, courteous, 
dignified gentleman, liberally educated and highly cultured. 
He was an honorable, able, and faithful Representative and 
Senator ami a brave and gallant soldier, and I am glad to have 
the opportunity of uniting with his friends to-day in paying- 
tribute to his memory. 



ADDRESS OF Mr. BOATNER, OF LOUISIANA. 

Mr. Speaker: In the death of Randall Lee Gibson 
Louisiana lost one of her most dexntcd sous and most valual)li^ 
public servants. He served her in war and in peace, in the 
camp and the council, always with devoted loyalty and always 
acceptably. He jMssessed the confidence of her people, and 
now that death has silenced detraction ami removed the cause 
of jealousy which always attends successful careers, no one 
denies that he deserved it. It has not fallen to the lot of any 
other Representative from that State to be X'rominently con- 
nected with so many measures of \ital importance to her 
welfare. 

To him was given the credit by the late Captain James B. 
Eads for the success of the legislation which promoted the con- 



92 Address of Mr. Boa/tn'r, of /.o/iisiana, on tlie 

strui'tioii (if tlic jetties at tlie mouth of the !\rissi.ssiii])i, wliich 
lia\e been of such inestimable benefit to tlic whole xalk-y. No 
other Senator or Itepreseiitative could claim equal ettectiveness 
witli him in the adoption by Congress of tlie great policy of 
internal improvements which promises in the neai- future to 
redei'Mi the valley of the Mississippi from the ravages of over- 
tlow and restore its old-time fruitful abundance of ])roduction. 
Every industry and interest of the State received his watchful 
and tireless care; and when tlie time came to surrender earthly 
responsibilities he could well have said that his services to his 
people repaid tliein for all the honors they had ciinfciTed upon 
him. 

treneral Gibson was not only the watchful guardian of the 
interests of his adopted State, but one of her most valuable 
contributious to the councils of the nation. A classical and 
thorough ediKjation, broadened by contact with the best and 
highest minds of the age, qualified him to grapjile with the 
great questions which presented themselves for settlement in 
the years which inuiiediately succeeded the war between the 
States. Conservative in his temper, tolerant of the views of 
others, but firm in the maintenance of his own, he commanded, 
liy reason of his distinguislied military service and ac(juaiiitance 
with the leaders of thought both South and Xorth, an inlluence 
l)ossessed by few who hailed fruni the stricken St>uth. Tliat 
that influence was wisely used is attested by the undiminished 
respect and cDufldencc of his colleagues at the time when "he 
passed over the river to rest in the shade of the trees." One 
by one they go — (iinsuN, C()L(,)UITT, N'anck. Few are left, 
and ill the ordinary course of nature not many years can pass 
w lien to sjjcak with jeers of the ''Confederate brigadiers" will 
be to insult the dead, the noble dead, who ha\'c illustrated by 
their lives tlie best, the nolilcst. and the truest traits of Amer- 
ican manhood. The time will i-oine, sir, when the f;i me of those 



Life ii)id Character of Randall Ltc Gibson. 93 

our noble dead will be the eommou i)i'ide, the commou glory, of 
the Americau people. 

Creiieial Gibson was as admirable iii private life as he was 
distiuguished as a soldier and a statesiueii. It was uot my 
j;ood fortuue to personally know the lovely and accomplished 
woman who devoted her life to him; but I am justified in say- 
ing that a devoted wife found in hiiu a loyal and devoted lius- 
Ijand. As a trieud he was most thoughtful and considerate, 
shedding the light of a benevolent and kindly heart upon all 
to whom he bore that relation. 

Reverently and tenderlj" he has been laid to rest wit]i the 
kinsmen and friends of his boyhood; a brave and loyal soldier, 
a faithful i-epresentative of the people, a devoted husband and 
father, a benevolent and self-sacriticiug friend and Christian 
gentleman has goue to his rest. 

Peace to his ashes. 



Address of Mr. Wheeler, of Alabama. 

Mr. Speaker: The resolutions wliieh are before the House 
bring up memories of many years ago. They recall to my 
mind when a third of a century ago I first met Senator Ran- 
dall Lee Gibson, and it has been my privilege and pleasure 
to be intimately associated witli this chivalrous gentleman for 
a greater part of the time up to the d'lte of liis death. I knew 
Senator Gibson as a .soldier, brave, chivalrous, and undaunted. 
1 knew him in the deadly (carnage, always leading in the front 
of battle, always courting tiic ])ost. of greatest danger. I knew 
him iu the camp, earnest and devoted in administering to the 
wants of his men and performing the tedious routine of duty. 
1 knew him on the march, alwa.\s sharing with Ids devoted 
soldiers labor, fatigue, suffering, and pri\ation. 1 km-w him 
when the war was over and thi' Ihig of the Goidederacv was 



94 Address of Mr. II 7/tr/rr, of Alabama^ on the 

trniled i]i thi' dust, lirokeii In lortuiiL', imt unciUKiucicd iii 
spirit. I kiieAV him ;is a <r('ntlciiiaii, iieiitle, <'<)urte(ms, iiiKain-. 
and loved and icsjicrtcd liy cxeryone, his beariiiy marked 
with (lijfiiity and tiriiiiiess and yet the perfection of sinijilic- 
ity and unobtrusive modesty, a striking exemplification of 
the highest type of manhood. I knew him as a husband 
and father, enjoyini;- the pleasures of a hapjiy family home 
filled with reciprocal feelings of love and devotion. 1 knew 
him twenty-two years ago, when, after a terrific struggle, 
he was elected a member of this body and commenced his 
career as a statesman in an arena t(» which he brought great 
natural gifts, cultured by diligent study, profound thought, 
and extensive travel. I knew him in the strength and vigor 
of powerful manhood, the id(d of his State, a leader among 
men. an honored, esteemed Senator of this great country. I 
knew him when the outstretched hand of death beckoned him 
to the shadow under which we all must pass. 

In all these varied conditions and relations of life Senator 
Gibson shone forth and seemed to illumine any spheie in 
which he moved. Whether in prosperity or adversity, whether 
enjoying bounteous affluence or undergoing financial reverses 
which the ravages of war brought ui)on him, whether as a ])ri- 
vate citizen or occupying the higli positions of general and 
Senator, he was the same dignified, modest, and affalilc gen- 
tleman. 

Senator (jIHShx was descended from a long line of distin- 
guished ancestors, and the gentle courtesy which character- 
ized him was his by iidierftance as well as education. He was 
a native of Kentucky, his father having married in early life 
Miss Ijouisiaua Plart, of Lexington, and here in the home of 
chivalry and culture his youthful nund expanded. While he 
was still very yomig his parents removed to Louisiana, and 
from that time he b(-(ame id<'nti(ied with the interests of his 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. \\b 

adopted liome. His early education was aciiuired in Terre 
Boune and Lexington, and Ids collegiate course at Yale was 
supplemented by several years of foreign travel. 

Iteturuiug liome, he studied law at tlio University of Louisi- 
ana, but lie did not at ouce euter upon the arduous details of 
the profession, preferring the life of a planter; but the stirring 
times preceding the outbreak of war forced him from his 
retirement and drew forth all the noblest qualities of his 
gifted nature. At the beginning of the war he raised a com- 
pany, and was soon made colonel of a regiment. Altiiougli 
untrained in military atfairs. his great natural (lualities made 
him conspicuous in his career, as ho would have been in any 
other position. 

His regiment, the Thirteenth r>oiiisiana, gained immortal 
renown for courage and heroism from tlie tinui it first met the 
shock of battle on the Held of Shiloh. 

The date first tixed for these ceremonies was just thirty-two 
years after the close of the terrible struggle, where General 
Gibson, worn and weary, begrimed with powder and smoke, 
was triumphantly completing the second day of the great 
battle ou the banks of the beautiful Tennessee. Only the 
preceding morning lie liad received his bajitism of blood, and 
in forty-eight hours had earned the reputation of a biavi . 
intrepid, and skillful brigade commander. In the many battles 
in which that armj' afterwards engaged we find (Jcneral 
Gibson always brave and conspicuous, and frequently men- 
tioned ill the reports of the commanders. 

In his report of the battle of Perry ville, General Adams 
speaks of the gallant service and military skill of Senator 
Gibson, and mentions a separate communication in which he 
recommends him for promotion to the rank of brigadier-general 
for the distinguished skill and valor which he disj)layed in that 
liotlv contested battle. 



96 Address of Mr. Wheeler^ of .Uabiui/a, on ilie 

I read from the War Records, volume !<>, i)agc, 1124: 

Tim jiiaises l)rstowe(l iu my report for gallant 8i;rvi(;o on the tielil fell 
muler ]iiy immediate observation in the cases of Colonel R. L. Gibson, 
Major Austin, and Captain Tracy. 

General Adams also says: 

The report of the others named was derived from the regimental n^jioits. 
The regimental <*()mniander8 named deserve credit for the manner in which 
they moved and kept their commands together. The Thirteenth Louisiana, 
Colonel Gibson, deserve s]iecial mention for the promptness with which 
they moved forwaril, tlie alacrity and rapidity witli whieli they pressed the 
enemy until halted hy my couniiaud. 1 will recommend Coh>nel (ilBsox, 
for skill :ind valor, to he brigadier-general, in a separate communit'ation. 

The next great battle of that army was Murfreesboro, aud 
here again we find General Gibson very distinguished. The 
eminent Major-General John C. Breckinridge speaks of Colonel 
Gibson's marked courage and skill throughout the battle, aud 
General Adams speaks of his conduct in a charge as deserving 
the highest praise, and states that no greater courage and de- 
terminalion coiUd liave been displayed. General Adams also 
speaks in high commendation of the tenacity with which Gen- 
eral Gibson held a fiercely assailed position. I read from 
General Breckinridge's report. War Records, noImuic 1!(», i)age 
783: 

General Adams having rei^eived a woun<l while gallantly leading his 
brigade, the command devolved upon Colonel R. L. Gibsox, who dis- 
charge<l its duties througliout with marked courage and skill. 

On page 793 of the same volume, General Adams gives an 
account of the charge in which General (tIbson was distin- 
guished iu these words: 

The conduct of the officers and men in making the cliargt' and holding 
the ])osition as long as tlicy did deserves the liigh<!st jiraise. No greater 
courage or determination conid liavc been dis]dayed. 

General Gibson also did excellent anil gallant service in the 
various engagements duiiiig the summer of 1<S(!.3: and loi- liis 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 97 

einiueut service at the battle of Chickainauga lie was highly 
counueiided by Major-General Breckinridge, who stated in his 
report that the country was indebted to him for the courage 
aud skill with which he discharged his duties in that great 
conflict. I read from General Breckinridge's report, which 1 
find in the War Eecords, volume 30, page 201 : 

To Brigadier-General Stovall, to Colouel Lewis, who succeeded to the 
command of Helms' brigade, and to Colonel R. L. Gibson, who succeeded 
to the command of Adams' brigade, the country is indebted for the ronr- 
age aud skill with which they discharged their arduous dutii s. 

All through the history of the Atlanta campaign we tiud 
General Gibson repeatedly mentioned and highly commended ; 
in the ^Yar Eecords, A-olume 38, page 707, by Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral Stephen D. Lee; on page 812 of the same volume, by 
Major-General C. L. Stevenson; on page 816, the same volume, 
by General A. P. Stewart ; on page 823, by General M. A . Stov- 
all, and on page 840, by General Alpheus Baker. 

In the battle of May 25 General Gibson's brigade bote a 
very conspicuous part. Major-General H. D. Clayton, in his 
official report, volume 38, i)age 833, says : 

Three lines of battle of the enemy came forward successively, and in 
turn were successively rejtulsed. Men <^ould not have fought better or 
exhibited more cool and resolute courage. Not a man except the wounded 
left liis position. The engagement lasted uninterruijtcdly until night, or 
more than two hours, and when the enemy finally withdrew many of my 
men had their last cartridge in their guns. 

In the many battles directly in front of Atlanta, and in the 
sanguinary battle of Jonesboro, General Gibson was repeat- 
edly distinguished. In his official report of the great battle 
of August 31, Major-General Clayton speaks of General Gib- 
son's heroic conduct in seizing the colors of one of his regi- 
ments and leading a charge on the works of the Federal Army, 
conduct which General ("layton says created the greatest 
S. Mis. 178 7 



!lS^ .Iddrcss of Mr. M'lnchr, i>f A/a/xiiiia, on llio 

eutliusiasiu tliiuughmit tlic coiiiiiiaiHl. I read troui General 
Claytoifs official report. War liecords, volume 38, i)agc S2L*: 

lirif;adier-General GlBsox, seizing the coIdts <it' (iinj of his regiments, 
(laslii'd to the front and up to the very works of the enemy. This conduct 
treated tin; greatest enthusiasm throughout his connnand, whieli again, 
as in the engagement of the 28th of July, previously mentioned, moved 
against a salient in the enemy's ■works. 

Unfortunately a large portion of the whole touiuuiml stoi)i)ed in the ritle 
iiits of the enemy, behind piles of rails and a fence running nearly parallel 
to his breastworks, and to this circumstance I attribute the failure to carry 
tlic works. Never was a charge begun with such enthusiasm tem\iiiated 
with accomplishing so little. Tliis gallant brigade lost one-half its num- 
bers. 

Tlis corps comiiiaiider, (ieiieral Steplieii D. Lee, speaks in 
the highest terms of General (tIBSOin'"s brigade iu the Tennes- 
see campaign in the fall of ]S(!4. He says: 

I saw them around .Vtlanta and in Mood's Xashvillo campaign. 1 desig- 
nated Gihson's Ijrigade to cross the Tennessee Kiver in open boats in the 
]n"esence of the enemy, ^lear Florence, ,-Vla., and a more g.allant crossing of 
any ri\'er was not made during the war. 

At the desperate and bloody Ijattle of Franklin, General 
Gibson won the highest enconiinms from General Hood. This 
distinguished ottifer stated that General GiB.sON evinced con- 
spicuous gallantry and ability in the handling of his troops. 
I read tlie exact language of General Hood: 

General (iiiLsox, who eviuced cousiiicuuus gallantry and aliility in U:o 
handling of his troops, succeeded, iu concert with Clayton, iu cheekiuv; 
and staying the most dangerous shock, which always follows immediately 
after a rout, GiBSOX's brigade and McKinzie's battery of Fenuer's battal- 
ion acting as rear guard of the rear guard. 

In the contiict around Nashville General GiB.soN added to 
his already high reputation. His corps commander, General 
Lee, speaks of the gallant conduct of GiBSOX's soldiei's ia 
that great struggle and of General Gib.SOn's .superb conduct 



Life and Clia racier of Raiulall Lee Gibson. 'j!» 

ill cliffkiiii; two tonniilahle assaults of the I'V-dwal Army. 
General Lee says: 

At Xasliville. wbcii Hooil was del'iatrd liy Thomas, Gibson's lirigade 
was coiisiiiciKiiisly postt-d ou the k"ft of the pike near Orer'on Hill, ami I 
witnessed tlieir driving liac-k, with the rest of Clayton's division, two for- 
inidatle assaults of the enemy. 

I recollect, near dark, riding tip to the hrigade. near a battery, and try- 
ing to seize a stand of colors and lead tlie brigade against the enemy. The 
color-bearer refused to give up his lolors and was sustained by his regi- 
ment. I found it was the color-bearer of the Thirteenth Louisiana. It 
was Gibson's Louisiana brigaile. ttiusox soon appeared at my side, and 
in admiration of stich conduct I exclaimed: '•GiBSO.v, these are the best 
men I ever saw; vou tiike them and check the enemy." Gibson did take 
them and did check the enemy. 

It is not singular that an officer ^vho in many battles liad met 
the hishest expeetati(ms of bis commanders and of the troops 
he so gallantly led should be selected for the independent com- 
maud of the troops at Spanish Fort, one of tbe important 
defenses of Mobile. In this position General Gibson dis- 
played the eminent (pialities which had made him distinguished 
throughout the war. 

General Taylor speaks of the defense of Spanisli Fort and 
the retreat conducted by General Gibson as one of the best 
achievements of the war. I read from his Construction and 
Recon.struction, published in 1877, page 221: 

General R. L. Gibson, now a member of Congress from Louisiana, licld 
Spanish Fort with 2.500 men. Fighting all day anil working all night, 
Gibson successfully resisted the efforts of the immense force against him 
until the evening of .\pril 8. when the enemy effected a lodgment threat- 
ening his only route of evacuation. Inder instructions from Maury he 
withdrew his garrison in the night to Mobile, excepting his pickets, neces- 
sarily left. Gibson's stubborn defense and skillful retreat make this one 
of the best achievements of the war. 

In a work on the campaign in Moltile by General Andrews, 
published in 180G. General Gibson, the commander of Spanish 



100 Ar/d?-css of Mi'. Wheeler^ of Alabama^ on the 

Fort, is spoken ol' by tliis Federal ottieei- iu the highest terms 
as a competeut and active officer and one who inspired his 
tr<>oi)s with entlinsiasin. On page 165 he says: 

TUo bt-siegLTS and garrison aliko aro entitled to i)raiso I'ur constant indns- 
try and tor energy. 

The garrison commander, (■eneral (iiiisdx. was competent and active 
and inspired liis troops ■with enthusiasm. He was highly complimented 
liy his Hiiperior officers tor his coudncf diii'ing the siege. 

I know I maybe pardoned for dwelling, as 1 liave, on the 
military etireer of General CriBsoN. His colleagues in the Sen- 
ate aud House knew of his eminent services while a member 
of this House and also during his career as a Senator; l)ut, 
although all knew he wtis a distinguished general, very few of 
liis friends were so informed of his milittiry service as to have 
a full appreciation of its extent and character. 

At the close of the war, returning to a blighted and desolate 
home, bis hojjes in the dust, his fortunes broken, he took up 
tlie practice of law and soon began to earn fame and fortune 
in liis new vocation. 

Tile breadth of his mind and tlie strengtii of his will, cdin- 
bined with the singular fascination which he exercised on those 
who surrounded him, soon placed him in a ]>rominout rank of 
the iirofessiiin. 

He was elected to the Fcu'ty-third Congress, but was de- 
prived of his seat. He was again electetl and admitted to the 
Forty-fourth, Porty-flfth, Forty-sixth, and Forty-seventii (_'ou 
gresses, aud while still serving in the latter, and having yet a 
term to serve in the Forty-eighth, he was elected to the Sen- 
ate in 1S82, and reelected at the end of that term. 

Senator ( JlCSON's services to his State have endeared hint to 
every citizen of Ijouisiana. In the dtirkest hour of the recon- 
struction period it was well for his people that this brave, good 
man slooil at tlic helm and pilotcil tlie craft into sale and 



Life and Cluxracler of Raiidall Lee Gibson. 101 

•juiet waters. It was by his strong and unswerving inrtuence 
that the Administration was persuaded to adopt tlie policy 
whicli linally enabled Louisiana to arise from the shackles 
which had well nigh crushed her to destruction. For his efforts 
in this direction, for his able advocacy of the Eads system of 
opening the Mississippi, and for his cooperation with Mr. 
Tulane in the location of the great university at New Orleans, 
he merited the undying gratitude of the people whose beloved 
representative he was. 

For a long time Senator Gibson suffered from the malady 
which finally resulted fatally, and several years before his 
death his happy home was broken up by the loss of his 
beloved wife, who preceded him to the tomb. 

His remains were taken back to the home of his childhood 
and deposited in the beautiful cemetery at Lexington, where 
repose the ashes of so many noble and distinguished sons of 
the great State of Kentucky. Here, surrounded by old war- 
worn comrades and escorted by a company of cadets from the 
Military University of Kentucky, he was laid to rest, amid the 
tears and blessings of the old and the young, in the bosom of 
his native and well-beloved home. 

In looking upon the mound which covers the mortal reumins 
of Senator Gibson we involuntarily recall the solemn words 
of Mrs. Browning: 

Xever, sister, never, w:is told by uiurtal breath, 

What they behold 

O'er whom hath rolh'd 
The one dark wave ot death. 

And yet while it is an infinite decree of divine wisdom 
that we should have no tidings fi-om beyond the tomb, yet 
there is within us an ever-living spirit which whispers of a 
future life wherein is to be found the fullness and completion 
of the always-present yearnings and as]>irations of our souls. 



102 Address of Mr. Breckinridge.^ oj Arkansas., on the 

It is ii cousolatiou to Senator (iiissoN's family and friends to 
know tli.it he felt tliese yearnings and aspirations in all their 
force, and tiiat he had full trust and confidenee in all tliat 
Christians believe of the life to come. 



ADDRESS OF Mr. Breckinridge, of Arkansas. 

It is not my purpose, !Mr. Speaker, td make a formal address 
in memory of my deceased friend, the late Senator from Louis- 
iana. When I considered the relations which for many years 
1 had maintained with him and the ties that bound his family 
and mine together, it was with more than ordinary i)leasure 
that 1 consented to say a word when called upon to do so by 
one of the delegation from his State. The details of his career 
have been related fully and admirably by those who have 
undertaken that part of these appropriate cei'emonies. Gen- 
eral Gibson was a mau whose character and career will yield 
greater fruit and receive greater admiration as they are con- 
tinuously and closely studied. 

In the course of a life not very prolonged he was called to 
discharge varied and high duties, and to all of them he proved 
fully equal. He was a man of such various gifts, of such learn 
ing, of such broad and perfect culture, that he would liave been 
successful in any calling to wliich he had chosen to devote his 
attention. It is not surprising, thei'efore. that, although not 
trained to the profession of arms, he should have received the 
highest praise from those with whom he served as well as from 
those to whom he was opposed. With his courage and sagacity 
it was not a lengthy task for him to master the main elements 
of the military art. 

As a lawyer he was successful, biit his equipment was such 
that he was most needed by his people to serve them in a ))ublic 
capa<'itv, niuler the coiniiliciitcd coiiditinns which surrounded 



Life and Character of Randal/ Lcc Gibson. 103 

tlieiii at the clu.sc of the civil war. After all that has been said 
of his success, after all that has been said of his achievements, 
I think I can truly say that his public career never fullj' taxed 
his greatest powers. Of all the men in public life with whom 
I have been associated there was not one possessed of more 
fascinating manners, there was not one a more accomplished 
gentleman, there was not one who was a more sagacious and 
astute man than Randall L. Gibson. 

Whatever were his successes — as a student at Yale College. 
as a lawyer, as a gentleniaii aduriiing the most cultivated 
society in Europe and in this country, as a member of this 
House, as a soldier, and as a Senator — I have always believed 
that General Gibson, never had an opportunity of publicly 
entering upon rhat Held of labor which was best suited to his 
talents. That is the field of diplomacy. He would have made 
a great Secretary of State. Xo man of his day was better fitted 
to represent his country in its foreign i-clations. He was pre- 
eminently a wise man in council. He was thoroughly familiar 
with all the springs and impulses of the human heart. Ener- 
getic in action, he was yet a man of reflection, serene, comjire- 
heusive, and far-reaching judgment. Of his military career— 
and few men did more hard fighting than he — the defen.se of 
Mol)ile will be considered his ablest and best achievement. 

The greater the task to which he had to address liimself the 
greater, apparently, was the ease with which his mind operated. 
I never knew a man who moved with greater ease than he did 
in all the higher elements of political philosophy and practice. 
Broad and comiu'ehensive, he seemed to omit no detail, and 
yet to grasp in all their bearings the farthest outlines of the 
greatest public questions and the profouudest principles of 
public p(dicy. 

Sir, I shall not continue these remarks at length. There 
were Just one or two points that 1 desire to speak of that had 
especially impressed themselves upon me in mj^ long and close 



104 Address of Mr. Breckinridge, of Arkansas, on (he 

relations witli Senator OmsoN. Our families have maintained 
an intimate relationship for several generations. Thei-e was 
kinship between us, and during the war he served under the 
command of my father, who extended to liim the same aifectioii- 
ate greeting that General Gibson extended to me when I met 
him upon my entrance into public life here. 

No man contributed more to the pacification of this country 
than did Senator Gibson, and his usefulness in public life, 
with all his rich and varied endowments, was so much depend- 
ent upou the blessings of his home life that remarks upon his 
career would be incomplete if they did not embrace within 
their scope the charming helpnuite who graced his board and 
who aided him in all the work and relations of his life. He 
did not marry until some time after the war. 

I remember being in the city of New York soon after the 
war and there meeting his wife, then a school girl, recently 
returned from France, and I thought that my eyes had never 
fallen upon a fairer or more beautiful vision. She was beauti- 
ful in person, pure and elevated in character, with rare good 
sense and i^erfect taste. They were thoroughly congenial, 
and she rendered him inestimable service in the exceedingly 
difficult undertaking that he, one of the representatives of a 
proscribed section, had to perform in seeking to knit anew the 
social ties, public confidence, and personal relations that had 
been severed by civil war. 

Those labors, by reason of his happy alliance, by reason of 
his wide associations formed at Yale, and his fidelity to all the 
friendships of his youth, as well as by reason of his own match- 
less gifts and attainments, he was able to bring to a successful 
conclusion. Among all my friends and associates there is none 
of whom I could with more sincerity speak words of admiration 
and love than of Senator Gibson, to whose memory on this 
occasion we seek to do reverence and honor. ^ 



Life and Characlcr of Randall Lee Gibson. 105 



ADDRESS OF Mr. Blair, of New Hampshire. 

Mr. Speaker: ^Ir. Gibson \ras a member of the Forty- 
fourth Congress, where I first knew him as one of the prominent 
men whose superior abilities signalized the advent of the lead- 
ers of the Confederacy to the leadershipof the restored Union. 
That Congress witnessed in this Chamber some of the greatest 
intellectual and forensic contentions in the annals of time. 

The passions of the war had not then subsided. The irrita- 
tions of the period of reconstruction had sharpened the ani- 
mosities which fringed the sublimer emotions of the great 
anterior struggle. More than ten years of quasi peace had 
not assuaged them, and it is probable that the North and the 
South met here in December, 1875, in a mood for more acri- 
monious debate than in December, 1861. 

Everything which led to the war and which had occurred 
dui'ing its xjrosecutioii. and subsequent to Appomattox, was 
fresh in all minds and ready to leaj) in fiery phrase of accusa- 
tion or defense from every tongue. Besides the past, there was 
a present and an immediate future to be fashioned and molded, 
upon which depended the domination of the industrial and 
social policies whose coUision rendered the era now rapidly 
disappearing from the scene one of the bloodiest and most dis- 
tim'tive in history. 

Everywhere it was recognized that gradually but suiely the 
South, although vanquished on the battlefield, was recovering 
from her wounds and rising from her ashes with her system of 
labor legally shattered, yet really stronger and more efficient 
than ever. 

The old-time bond between the Democratic party in the two 
sections had not been severelv strained even in actual war. 



1(H) .Idl/rnss of Mr. Iilaii\ of New I [a»ipsliiri\ on the 

Tliie, till' inlicrcnt ]i;it riot ism (if tlic masses ol' tlic Northern 
people hail iilleil tlie armies of the Union with volunteers, who, 
regardless uf party, <lie(l with equal devotion to the flag; but 
the ideas and policnes of the autebeUuni Democracy survived 
the war, as they snrvi\'e it still, and there was a natural resto- 
ration of uiuty ill action in that great jiarty as soon as the 
shock of battle ceased. 

The reconstruction of the Democrai'y was conii)lete at the 
surrender, for its unity of spirit — never disturlied during the 
war — was at once a manifestly perfect bond with the return of 
peace. On the other hand, the ideas and issues represented 
by the IJepublican party had no lodgment in the South, except 
in the liearts of vast but nnintelligent masses of another and 
helpless race, so that tlie solid white iKipulation of that great 
section, reenforcing the Northern Democracy, had rendere<l 
the ai)iiroaching Presidential struggle of 1870 one of very 
doubtful result. 

Both great parties looked upon it as a jxilitical (lettysburg, 
and nmny feared that it nught be succeech'd by law less blood- 
shed, if not by another outbreak of actual war. Under these 
circumstances, upon which the ])roprieties of the occasion will 
not permit me to dwell in further detail, it was unavoidable 
that the great men of the country, who in larger luimbers 
never were jjresent in any Congress sini-c the foundation of 
the Government, should put forth their utmost powers, stirred 
and stimulated by the strongest passions, as well as the most 
elevateil motives, emotions, and conxieiions belonging' to 
human nature. 

Of the great acitors in that drama wiio still survive 1 say 
nothing, because it is unfitting to transfer them to the realms 
of deification while we are still blessed with their bodily pres- 
ence, lint there w<>re Itlaine and Garfield on the one side. 
On the other wert' Hill and lianiai'. Manv more immortal 



Life and Character of Randall Lcr Gibson. 107 

names in the yreat galaxy of the departt-d miglit hi^rclie incii- 
tioued: and it is hut a just tribute to the memory of tlic })ril 
liant, polished, able, and beloved Kandali. Gibson to say 
that he stood up among' those nuirveloiis men as gallant and 
courtly and eluvalrous and hoimralilf and ]iatriotic and]ir(i- 
foundly respected a gentleman as any om^ of them all. 

I knew him thenceforward until 1h» died, ni-vcr intimately, 
but I believe I always knew liim Avell. 

For some four years Me sat side by side in the Senate. 

During all that time I was cnnscious that a superior being 
was near: that a spirit sweet and affectionate and sensitive 
and imre, with lofty asj)irations. with benevolent and far- 
reaching purposes for the improvement and blessing of others. 
looked forth from those steadfast and penetrating eyes, and 
vitalizeil with noble impulses the eloiiuent periods with which 
he charmed, instructed, and convinced the Senate. 

His efforts were rightly, first, for the people of his then de 
vastated and distracted State ; but the heart of General GiB- 
SOX was as large as the whole country, aiul was full of justice 
and love for us all. He was one of those to whom a Northern 
man would turn with confidence if he were specially .solicitous 
that the destinies of the la)id should fall into the j)ossession ol' 
those of our Southern countrymen who would administer the 
Constitution and laws for all sections, iu the true national 
spirit, aud for the greatest good of the greatest number, tem- 
pered with the limitation that never shall the inalienable right 
of the humblest and weakest be sacritice<l for the benetit (if 
greed and power. 

He knew that true reeonstriu^tion of the L^nioii and the per- 
manent existence of freedom and happiness depend upon uni 
versal intelligeiu-e and virtue among the people. 

He Avas identified with the cause ol' education in his own 
State, as the chief jiromoter of the great Tulane Institution. 



108 .ItM/ys.K i)/'J//-. />'A?//-, ti/ A'rrc 1 fii»ipsliiri\ on //ir 

tliat j;rcat intellect iial lighthouse which Imriis as a jiillar <il" 
fire for the perpetual illumiiiatioii <>l' the surpassing valley of 
the Aiiierieaii Nile. 

lie was piot'oundly (le\<)te(l to tlie passage of the natimial 
education bill, whieli for many years was the hope of the cotn- 
mon people of the South, and which, had it not died, as Christ 
died, bj' the betrayal of those who ])retended to be its friends, 
would befoi-e now \\;\\v reconstructed the country upon rela- 
tions of equality and Justice to all, and made peace and union 
ajid prosperity forever secure, by establishing homogeneous 
conditions everywhere, giving to <-ach child of the Itepublic, 
white and black, a common school education and a fair stait 
and equal chance in the race of life. 

T^rging the passage of this great measure, 3fr. (4inso.N said 
on tlie flooi' III' till' Senate: 

•'In my opinion, reflecting men in all parts of tlie country 
* * * have formed the deliberate judgment that theedu(^a- 
tion of the people, the enlightenment of the suffrage, the eleva- 
tion of th(>. popular character and tlie popular conscience, the 
awakening of a loftier and healthier sentiment of initional 
pati'iotism, is absolutely iudispeusable to the ])reservation of 
constitutional liberty," 

Xoble worils of a jiatriot, a j)liilaiitliropist, and a sage! 
They shall immortalize thy name when empires have fallen 
and lealms have, decayed I 

(Jlosely associated in their a(lvoca<\\ of the education bill, 
his great compeer from tlie same region of tlie South, the, 
gifted and lamented fjamar, exclaimed: 

I have watched it with <l»'i-p iiilcrt-st ami inti-nHn solicitude. In my opin- 
ion, it is the first step ami thr most important stt-p this Governiuent has 
ever taken in the direction of tlic solntitm ol' \\hat is knf>wn as the race 
]irol)lem, and I believe it will Irll mon- jiowerl'iilly and decisively upon 
the future destini<;s of tlie colored race than any measure or ordinaneo 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 109 

that has yet been aiiojited iu reference to it — more decisively than eitlier 
the thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth amendments, unless it is to he con- 
sidered, as I do ronsi<ler it, the logical seiiuence and the practical contin- 
uance of those amendments. 

I think that this mea.sure is fraught with almost unspeakable heuelils 
to the entire population of the South, white and black. It will excite a 
new interest among our people; it will stimulate lioth State and local 
communities to more energetic exertions and greater sacriBces, because it 
will encourage them in their hopes in grappling and struggling with a 
task before whose vast proportions they have stood appalled in the con- 
sciousness of the inadequacy of their own resources to meet it. 

Lamar was one of the great men of liis geueration. He will 
live ill our history as a statesman, an orator, a jurist, a dis 
criminating and philosophic student of mankind. lint he 
never manifested a more powerful comprehension of the great 
problem of our time than is expressed in these vital and elo- 
quent words. 

Men of the South! the failure of the educational hill was 
your great calamity. Under its operation ten years woulil 
have accomplished the slow and doubtful work of a centiuy 
left to be wrought by existing agencies. Is there no resurrec- 
tion, and is death ;in eternal sleej* .' This is the great question 
for the young and rising South. You have the power in your 
own hands, and you, not 1, nor nmii or men of other sections, 
are mainly responsible for the future now. 

Bandall Lee Gibson isavith us no more. 

Born in the South; educateil in the North: lombiniug the 
best ([ualities of both sections, and comparatively free from 
the influence of the weaker and lower elements of human 
nature, he lived an active and upright life: i)erf()rmed an 
important part upon a conspicuous stage: in war he was a 
knight without fear and without reproach: in jieace a useful 
and honored citizen, discharging public duties with integrity, 
zeal, and ability, and always one of God's true gentlemen. 



110 Address of Mr. Hooker, of Mississippi, on tlie 

He is emballiii'il in the lioimr iiiid love nT liis ii)iiiirr\ men ! 
Kest, K|iii'it, ii-Ht ! Soar, sinril, sumi! 

Loiiisiaiui will enshrine liis nieniDry with l^deless and |>ei- 
petniil flowers: the ineense oC her ijratitude wdl ascend until 
the. last drop of the Missi.ssi))pi ha.s rolled liy his grave on its 
way to the sea: and it is well that he sleep ann)ii!L;- those who 
knew him best, and therefore loved him iriost, until the i-esur- 
rection. But I do Utiow of eyes anioni: the far hills of the 
North that will weep for him, and of one heart that will beat 
more quickly at the sound ot' his name until itself shall throb 
no more. 



Address of Mr. Hooker, of Mississippi. 

Mr. Speaker: The very able and e.^haustive address which 
has been delivered oti the life and character of my friend, 
(ieneral Randall Lee Gibson, by his colleague from the city 
of New Orleans, General Meyer, makes it almost unnecessary, 
F rhiTik, to say anything in the line in which he spoke, for he 
has portrayed in truthful (M)lors the life and character of the 
great representative from Louisiana on this rioor and on the 
Hoor of the Senate. 

;\Ir. Speaker, in 1S7.5, at the be^'inning of the Forty- fourth 
Congress, there appeared in this Hall one of the most marked 
men who has occupied a seat in the House of Representatives 
since the close of the war between the States. He was of the 
nnxrked Anglo-Saxon type of men; blue eyes, radiant with 
expression; light hair, features perfectly chiseled, with a smile 
that won all hearts, and yet an expression about the mouth in 
moments of earnestness which showed of what metal he was 
made. Tall of form, .slender in proi)ortions, with a scrupulous 
neatness in ai)i)arel which (hallenged the eye of the critic, with 



Life and Cliaractcr of Randall Lee Gihsoii. Ill 

a diffiiitted. courreoiis. and macioiis bearing, lie drew to )iini 
all eyes and won the admiration of liis colleagues in this Hall. 
That mail was Randall Lke Gihs<:)n, a Representative from 
the State of Louisiana. 

For what I arn about to say in reference to his birth, lineage, 
and his military career, and the services which he rendered as a 
legislator in this Hall, and the otlier branch of Congress, F am 
largely Indebted to the jten of his kinsman, that gallant states- 
man. American soldier, and American gentleman, the Hon. 
Preston .Tohnston. of the State of Louisiana, who was his life- 
time friend: himself the so7i of the great Albert Sidney John- 
ston, so memorable for his services in the Confederate war. 

r well remember the occasion which I now refer to. When 
he -was suffering from one of those hereditary attacks to which 
my friend General ^NIe^ek has lefeired, it became his duty, by 
invitation of the citizens of the State of Louisiana, to uuike an 
address at the unveiling of the equestrian statue of Albert 
Sidney Johnston. I cliance<l to be jiresent by invitation on that 
occasion, as 1 had been honored l)y the citizens of Louisiana in 
making the address wlu'u the corner stone of that equestrian 
.statue of Albert Sidney J(»hnst()n was laid. General GiBSOlv', 
on that occasion, rose from a bed of sickness, and when he 
ascended the platform to address the vast multitude that had 
come to do honor to the memory of tlie great soldier he went 
upon that platform on his crutches, suffering intense physical 
pain, and supported himsell' on those crutches during the 
disconrse. 

He delivered an address that tlirilled every lieart, and a-woke 
the admiration of all the confederates of the dead general whom 
they had come to honor, tiie soldiers in blue vieing with those 
in gray who siiould strew the first flowers. And I hope the 
same gifted i)en which has portrayed his character, life, and 
.services as a Confederate general may yet be used, in the midst 



112 Address of Mr. Hooker, of Mississippi, oji the 

even of tlie busy iiiid useful life of Oolonel Preston .loliiiston, 
to give not only to the State of Louisiana, but to the country 
and to humanity, ;i history of Randall Lee Gibson, a 
biography of him, which no man can write as Colonel Preston 
Johnston could write it. It is to liini I wxw indebted for 
knowledge of his origin, family history, and his military 
services. 

General Gibson was born at Spring Hill, Woodford ('ounty, 
Ky., September 10, 1S32. His ancestors were the fighting 
Whigs of the Revolutionary war. Joliii Gibson, the progenitor 
of the Gibson family in America, emigrated from EnglaTid in 
1706, accompanied by several brothers, and settled in Middle- 
sex County, Va. They afterward removed to South Carolina 
and settled on the Great Peedee River with their kinsmen, 
the Murfees, Saunders, Harrisons, and Pegues. 

They all took active part in the Revolutionary war, and at 
its close the grandfather of General Gibson, Randall Gibson, 
settled in Mississiiipi, at Oakley, in Warren County. His 
descendants and connections embrace some of the best known 
families in the southwest — the Harrisons, Nailors, Stewarts, 
Gillespies, Barneses, Humphreys, Booths, Marshalls, Hig- 
ginses. Brands, and others, all men of influence and mark in 
the day and time in which they lived. Randall Gibson, the 
grandfather of General Gibson, built the first church and 
founded the first institution of learning (Jefferson College, 8 
miles back of Natchez) in the Mississippi ^'alley. 

Randall Gibson's son, Tobias Gibson, the father of our de- 
ceased friend. General Gibson, settled in Terre Bonne I'arish, 
La. He was a man of rank and iufiiienc<' in his day; the close 
personal and political friend of Henry ('lay, whom he often 
entertained at his ))rinccly summer residence, near Lexing- 
ton. Kv. 



Life and Charoclcr of Randall Lee Gibson. 113 

Tobias Ciibsou was a geiitlenian of tlic old school, proud, 
courtly, and fastidious, but hospitable and kind. 

Through his mother's family, the Harts, General Gibson 
■was connected with some of the most noted families of Ken- 
tucky- — the Clays, the Bentoiis, tlie Prestons, the Marshalls, 
and others of equal distinction. 

General Gibson was the eldest son of Tobias Gibson, and 
his schoolboy days were spent in Kentucky, where he has a 
host of friends, who will (cherish his name and memory with a 
love as tender and an admiration as sincere as that of the 
friends of his own State of T>ouisiana, which he represented on 
this floor. In 1849 General GiB.soN entered Yale College. 
He took high rank in his classes, being selected i)rator by his 
society, and shared the honors of the class of 1.S53 with E. 
C. Stedman, the poet, and A. D. White, the educator. 

General Gibson studied law in New Orleans, and was grad- 
uated at the university iu 185.3. He went abroad and spent 
three years in Europe, studying in Berlin, visiting Iiussia, and 
being for six months attached to the American legation at 
Madrid, when we were represented at that court by General 
A. C. Dodge, a high type of an American gentleman. 

Returning from his educational trip abroad, shortly before 
the breaking out of the war between the States, General Gib- 
son pursned the practice of law until that event occurred. 

When the war began General Gibson enlisted as a private, 
and was appointed captain of artillery, and stationed at Fort 
Jackson, below New Orleans. Soon after he was elected colonel 
of the Thirteenth Lonisiaiia Infantry. 

His first great battle was at Shiloh. Four regiments were 

brigaded together and General Gibson was selected by his 

brother officers to command the brigade, which played a gallant 

and conspicuous i)art in the great battle. His brigade was 

S. Mis. 178 8 



114 Address of Mr. Hooker^ o/ .If/ssiss/ppi] on the 

four times repulsed with great slaughter at the "Hornet's 
Nest," but it was in the front line at sunset, and was distin- 
guished in the fighting next day under Gen. Polk, which Gen. 
Sherman pronounced the heaviest fire during the war. 

General Gibson was with Bragg's army in the Kentucky 
campaign, and was recominendeil by his superior officers for 
promotion for "skill and gallantry" at Perryville, Murfrees- 
boro, and Chickamauga. He lost one-third of his brigade 
killed and wounded at jSIurfreesboro; out of 28 officers of the 
Thirteenth Louisiana, he lost 19, and 332 men killed and 
wounded. 

His service was long and continuous in all the TTesterii 
campaigns, and received the cordial commendation r)f his 
superior ofiQcers, including such illr.strious names as Polk, 
Hardee, John C. Breckinridge, Cheatham, Dan Adams, Maury, 
Preston, Stephen Lee, Richard Taylor, J. E. Johnston, and 
Hood. Gen John C. Breckinridge said of liim at the l)attle of 
Murtreesboro : 

He discharged bis duties with marked courage mikI skill. 

General H. D. Cl.ayton, in his report of the liattle of Joues- 
boro, Ga., 31st of August, 1S(!1, says: 

Hrigadier-Geiieral GiitsdX, seizing the colors of one of his regiments, 
daslied to the front ai.d to the very works of the enemy. His eoiidui't 
created the greatest eiitinisiasin throughout the eoinmaiul. This gallant 
brigade lost half its iiunihers, 

Clayton adds : 

My 0"wn eyes bore witness to its splendid conduct from the beginning 
to the close. It captured the guns of the enemy and occupied their main 
■works until overwhelming and increasing numbers forced their abandon- 
ment. It was handled with skill, and fought with the heroism of des- 
peration. 

General Stephen D. Lee, speaking of Gibson's brigade, says; "I saw 
them around Atlanta and in Hood's Nashville campaign, and I know that, 
in consultation with Major-tieneral Clayton, I designated Gibson's bri- 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 1 1 .0 

gade to cross the Tennessee River, in ojieii Imats. in the jiresenoe of the 
enemy, ojiposite Florence, Ala., and a more gallant cros.siui; of any river was 
not made during the Tvar. The enemy was supposed to he in large force, 
covered by the h.anks, but GiBSOX and his men never ini]uired as ti> iiuin- 
bers when they were ordered forward, and their gallant bearing soon put the 
enemy's sharp.shooters to llight and secured a good crossing for two divisions 
of my corps. At Xashville. when Hood was defeated by Thomas, Gmsox's 
brigade of my rorps was ecnispicnously posted on the left of the pike near 
Overton Hill, and I witnessed theirdriving back, with the rest of Clayton's 
division, two formidable a.ssaults of the enemy. • » • I recollect, near 
dark, riding up to a brigade near a battery and trying to seize a stand of 
colors and lead the brigade against the enemy. The color bearer refused 
to give up his colors, and was sustained by his regiment. I found it was 
the color-bearer of the Thirteenth Louisiana, and it was Gii!SOn'.s Louis- 
iana brigade. Gibson' so<in appeared by my side, aiul in my admiration of 
Buch conduct. I exclaimed, ' Gib.son, those are the best men I ever saw; 
you take them and check the enemy.' Gibson' did lead them and did check 
the enemy. " 

In General Canby's campaign against Mobile, General Gib- 
son was rtetaclied from the main army and, with a force of 
3,500 men, held the enemy in check for over two weeks. The 
fighting was fast and furious from beginning to end. (ieueral 
C. C. Andrews, the Federal historian of the campaign, says: 
"The garrison made at least a dozen sorties, several of which 
were successful." At last, when General Oanby broke through 
his defenses, Gibson prolonged the fight until night and then 
withdrew the garrison under cover of darkness along a nar- 
row treadway, only 18 iiuihes wide, through the marsli. Gen- 
eral Andrews, in his history, says: 

The garrison commander, General Gibson', was competent ami active, 
and inspired his troops with enthusiasm. He was highly complimented 
by his superior ofHcers for his conduct during the siege. 

General Richard Taylor, commanding the department, was so plea.-^cd 
with Gibson's conduct at Spanish Fort that he enlarged his command. 
But the war was at an end, surrender came and ho was now appointed by 
Taylor the commissioner to meet the Feder.al officers to parole the army. 



116 Address of Mr. Hooker.^ of Mississippi^ on the 

In liis f;iie\vell ;iil(lrrss to his triiii]i.s (iiusoN says: " Your liau hits are gar- 
landed with the emblems of every soldiery virtue; more thau twenty 
battletields have seeu them uuluiled; they were tiever lowered save over 
the l)ier of a comrade. * ' " Comrades! henceforth other duties will 
devolve upon you. Adversities lau only strengthen the ties that bind you 
to your rountry aud increase the obligations you owe to her interests and 
her honor. As soldiers you have been among the bravest and most stead- 
fast; as citizens be lawabiding, peaceable, and industrious." 

Tlius ended, with the close of the war, one of tlie iiio.st 
brilliant inilitiirj^ record.s made by any general of the Con- 
federate army. 

In 1872 his fellow-citizens in Louisiana selected him as a 
man jios.sessing rare judgment and great cooliie.ss and high 
and jiatriotic conservatism to rei)reseiit them in this House. 

He was not permitted to take his seat. 

In 1874 he was again elected to a seat in this House; and it 
was here I first met (Teueral (iiBSON, and it was not long be- 
fore 1 learned to love him for those sterling traits of character 
which he displayed and for that uniform courtesy and kind- 
ness it was ever his delight to extend to his colleagues and 
comrades. 

General Gibson was reelected as a Kepreseutative to this 
House in 1874, and again in 1870, 1878, and 1880; and in all 
his service in this House I had the honor to serve with him. 

General Gibson, with the able colleagues who served with 
him from Louisiana, addressed themselves primarily to obtain 
the removal of the military forces of the United States from 
their State, and after long delay and much vexation this was 
accomjdished, and Louisiana was once more restored to her 
civil rights in the Union. 

One of the subjects to whi(!h General Gibson at an early day 
inhisCongressional service addressed himself was thi' improve- 
ment of the Mississippi L'lver. Indeed, he may be Justly saiil 
to be the father of tlie Mississippi Kiver Commission. whi(;h 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 117 

was and still is composed of the best engineers from the Army 
of the United States and from civil life. The fruits of the 
labor and skill of this Conimission are now being enjoyed by 
the people of the Mississippi Valley in comparative exemption 
from the disastrous floods which formerly devastated this the 
most fertile valley of the world. In recognition of his legisla- 
tive services in these and other measures of equal importance, 
in which he displayed powers of reason and research and 
eloquence not surpassed by any man who served at that time 
in Congress, the people who knew him best and prized him 
most, his beloved citizens of Louisiana, elected him to the 
United States Senate. He took his seat in March, 1883. 

His native ability, his splendid education, his long service of 
eight j'ears in the House fully equipped him for entrance into 
that august body. 

He sprang into the arena of high debate, armed cap-a-pie for 
the conflict. 

His comrades and peers in the Senate learned to love this 
splendid and pure man, as we did in the House, and it is lit and 
proper that I should leave bis Senatorial career to be spoken 
of in suitable terms by his friends and colleagues in that body. 

He was a man of the highest character. Xo duty in life was 
neglected, and no obligation but that was faithfully met. 

As a man in all the relations of life, as a citizen, as a soldier, 
as a representative, he had few peers and no superiors. 

There was not a blemish, not a spot, on what seemed to me 
to be a perfect character. 

He died in the fullness of his useful manhood and honored 
life, leaving t« his descendants and kindred and friends a name 
beloved by those tied to him by the ties of kindred and con- 
nection and friends, and honored of all men who know his life 
and services to his country. 

I have thus, Mr. Sjjcaker, endeavored t« portray in a few 



118 Address of Mr. Hooker., of Mississippi^ on the 

remarks the liistory and career of our distinguislied friend, to 
^^llom we meet here today to ])ay tlie last sad honor. It is 
natural that we sliould refer to the services which he rendeicd 
to the Confederate soldiers, though when he came into tliis 
Hall and the Senate Chamber lie manifested a conservatism of 
disjiosition which won for him not only the hearts and att'ec 
tions of men of his own jiartyluit of all. It is natural that we 
should erect monuments to those who liave served us with tlie 
distinction which such men as Gibson did. The soldiers of the 
Union armies have erected upon the battletlelds monuments 
declaring the valor and heroism, the (courage and jiatiiotisin 
of the men who led the Tnion armies. 

That same spirit and temper wliich prompt them to honor 
their dead lead them to say, sir, that it is but proper that 
those who belonged to what is called "The lost cause," and 
who wore the Confederate gray during the war would be 
equally unfaithful to their duty if they did not on approjiriate 
occasions erect monuments and pay tribute to their dead. 
They would write over our graves not alone the word '' rebel," 
as was done at one time in Arlington, but which I am glad to 
say now has been removed — they would not write the word 
" rebel " over the graves of Confederates, for that is a term 
which George Washington wore and Robert E. Lee honored; 
and it is naught therefore but jtioper that the use of this term 
with reference to distinguished Confederates should be in the 
same spirit in which it distinguished the love of liberty in our 
Revolutionary war and all others. They would scratch out 
the word " rebel" if we should forget their services, and jirop- 
erly write there "Ingrate! Ingrate! Ingrate!" could we for- 
get the ])erils encountered, the hardships endured, the blood 
shed for us by the men who wore the ragged gray jacket of 
the Confederacy. 



Life and Character of Randall Lee Gibson. 119 

Xo, sirs; while faithful memory lasts its magic waml will 
wave over the chill vaults of the sepiilcher — the dead nation's 
sepulcher— her hundred battlefields; and the dea<l will start 
again into life, pale, pallid, passionless as the seraphs. Indeed, 
and in truth, in the arms of our fancy, may we again embrace 
those dear departed comrades who, while they lived, lived for 
us and for their country, and when they j'erished jjoured out 
their rich young life's blood on that country's altar; and as 
their pale lips froze in death on many a distant battlefield their 
last syllabled utterances perchance murmured our names. 

No, Mr. Speaker; we could not forget them if we would, 
and we would not if we could. 

Of all this vast throng of the dead, lying in their unmarked 
graves under the green sod, where in the springtime we strew 
the flowers of faithful memory, no braver soldier or purer 
spirit or truer man lies than our honored, loved, and cherished 
comrade, Randall Lee Gibson. 

The Speaker. In pursuance of the resolution which has 
been adopted the House stands adjourned until Monday next. 



013 786 996 2 






